DESPOND - SUPREME FUNERAL ORATION | REVIEWS | Diabolical Conquest Webzine | DESPOND - Atmospheric Funeral Doom/Death Metal from France

A mastermind of Monolithe's Richard Loudin, Despond is doom band par excellence, one that has sadly been languishing in the thicket of obscurity. Like Monolithe, the hallmark of Despond's music is the imaginative atmosphere it generates, though in this case it is more emotional and is divided into several long songs as opposed to one never-ending track.

With the commencement of Supreme Funeral Oration, misty notes emerge from your speakers and linger around, its movement stirred by the slow deliberate beating of drums that resound through the vast space. Light keyboards that occasionally appear serve to accentuate the pervading atmosphere created by the guitars and to hasten that process. The advent of leads is the final nail on the figurative coffin of your earthly body, encircling it from bottom to top and thus completely shrouding you and your thoughts from your surroundings with its emotionally charged atmosphere.

Album opener “Rain” exemplifies all that and more. Beginning in a slow manner similar to Dolorion, it eventually envelops you in its thick yet expansive atmosphere and then constantly manipulates it to create different moods that are reflected on your emotions. Its magnificent leads lift you up and carry you far away from your drab reality. Despondent plodding that follows is reminiscent of early My Dying Bride, and with keyboards replacing the violins it resembles Morgion. Next song “Once In The Hole” ambles along in the dejected doom/death manner for the first five minutes, and after plunging into a dark interlude, the music is bolstered by the brisk beating of the drums and ascends a couple of minutes later to climax with a swirling vortex of a lead that will draw in even your most suppressed emotions. “Serenity In Darkness” is a glorious song, picking up from where the previous song left by quickly unleashing another lead that spirals through the thick atmosphere to recapture your entranced state. Then, taking cue from a deep rumbling roar, the music adopts a gritty approach, marching imperially with the atmosphere undergoing a drastic transformation and leaving your mood no option but to conform to it. Tasteful keyboards join in to intensify the emotional upheaval that one necessarily goes through, conjuring a thick atmosphere similar to that of Morgion's Solinari and to a lesser extent Evoken, with leads regularly wafting across to create palpable ripples through it.

“Stellar Ways To The Everliving” is an outstanding track featuring Runemagick influences circa Requiem of the Apocalypse, a soundtrack to the marching of valiant soldiers to a suicidal battle of honour. In this epic 14-minute journey, Despond convey feelings of raw anger, wistful sadness and unmitigated glory. The highlight is the atmospheric segment that follows crunchy chugging around the halfway mark; it is an emotional moment that will induce tears from your eyes whilst you clench your fists below. After that, the music regains composure and marches on with its full might to its heroic end. “Grief” is reminiscent of Skepticism and My Dying Bride circa The Angel and the Dark River but bearing the emotional atmosphere of Pantheist. A change from the largely low muffled growls, the song has mostly clean doleful vocals. Given impetus by keyboards, towards the end there is a breathtaking lead lingering in the air long enough for you to gag on it and weep uncontrollably. “Moonlight Suicide” trudges on gloomily for a few minutes, and just when you are getting a bit impatient, the atmosphere undergoes a transformation effected mainly by the keyboards, and then, as you have come to expect from Despond by now, a sublime, unpretentious lead materialises and propels you into a state of oblivion while the atmosphere closes in on you.

Supreme Funeral Oration is one of the best and most underrated doom albums of this century. Its emotionally rich music unfolds gracefully in a sequential manner whilst projecting a spectacular atmosphere of varying deep moods. Hunt this album down as if it were your doom soul mate. It is waiting for you dressed in a lovely digipack with a fitting booklet.

Despond - Supreme Funeral Oration