Left Hand Solution - Through The Mourning Wood
LEFT HAND SOLUTION – ‘THROUGH THE MOURNING WOODS’
About four months back, Swedish doom outfit the Left Hand Solution unexpectedly dropped a new album, called Through The Mourning Woods, a collection of pure, unadulterated, industrial-strength primordial doom.
Left Hand Solution
Unexpectedly because the band, formed in 1991, although successful, having released three albums and toured Europe, the US, and Canada, faded out at the turn of the century. Their disappearance was the result of two things: half the band played in The Kristet Utseende, which was their primary focus, and the pressure of family.
Then, all of a sudden, for whatever reason, guitarist Joakim Mardstam and drummer Erik Barthold found themselves neighbors. They began writing songs. Before long vocalist Mariana Holmberg and bassist Peter Selin arrived. In secret, they started laying down tracks, resulting in the new album, which, according to rumor, will be followed by another compilation album sometime this year.
Encompassing six-tracks, the album starts off with “Blessed Be My Fallen Angel,” opening on grungy grinding guitars full of thick pulsing energy and dark dreadful resonance. I love the drums on this track, powerful and pervaded by rumbling tones. Holmberg’s voice infuses the tune with colors simultaneously sweet and poisonous, like Eve in the Garden, offering the apple to Adam.
“Blessed be my fallen angel / Princess of the night / Blessed be my fallen ways / And all the years gone by.”
“Stillborn” travels on tremulous gleaming guitars flowing into heavy textures of calamitous savors, buff with gooey muscularity.
“And Time Went By” rides dark stuttering guitar riffs topped by Holmberg’s drawling/wailing timbres. A searing, crunching breakdown presages a stellar guitar solo traveling on thrumming flavors.
“Return The Sun” vibrates with cavernous resonance from muscular chords, as the measured rhythm shifts on a slightly disjointed cadence. Holmgren’s tones assume dark hollow hues on this track, imbuing it with wistful melancholic gravity.
“The Bleeding Heart” opens on Sabbath-like resonance, potent and brawny, and then descends to hefty agonizing profundity, swirling with eddies of shadowy energy. “Stillborn” travels on tremulous gleaming guitars flowing into heavy textures of calamitous savors, buff with gooey muscularity.
“Fields On Fire” releases savagely wicked pigments, coiled with black momentum and dense harmonics. This track and “Blessed Be My Fallen Angel” comprise my personal favorites on the album, reminding me of what the soundtrack for Robert E. Howard’s Bran Mak Morn would sound like, if Ridley Scott made it into a movie.
Through The Mourning Woods, without a doubt, is one of the best doom albums to come down the pipe in quite some time. Glorious stuff!
