Narrow House - Thanathonaut (CD)

Review
Rock Metal Essence
8.3/10


Il sassofono, le tastiere e il violoncello nella musica doom metal? Da oggi si può, grazie alle ispirate composizioni della formazione ucraina dei Narrow House, contenute nel loro secondo album Thanathonaut.

A metà tra doom tradizionale e heavy metal moderno, questo interessante disco crea una serie di atmosfere apocalittiche ed oscure di sicuro impatto, muovendosi attraverso un sound fresco e fortificato da tanto groove, e curati arrangiamenti. La voce tenebrosa del cantante e bassista Yegor "Bewitched" Ostapenko si sposa a meraviglia con le trame doom, mischiate di folk e gothic, di questo combo, ma è l'unione tra violoncello, sassofono, tastiere e chitarra a rendere l'esperienza d'ascolto unica ed entusiasmante, con questi strumenti ad alternarsi o intrecciarsi nel disegnare immagini e sfumature vivide e raggianti.

Con tanto spazio lasciato allo strumentale, è il duo di canzoni Thanathonaut e A Sad Scream of Silver, con l'aggiunta dovuta della finale Возрождение, ad esemplificare al meglio il sound di questi musicisti che, con la giusta dose di fortuna, non stento a credere potranno farsi notare nel mercato internazionale. Magari già con questo Thanathonaut, un disco maturo ed ispirato, che tanto piace e diverte. Tenebrosi e raffinati.

Author: Iacopo Mezzano

Review
Ave Noctum
9/10
12.08.2014

A couple of years ago I came across this Ukrainian lot via their debut, A Key To Panngrieb and was suitably impressed by its promise. Funeral doom, orchestrated sound but a heavy Skepticism debt. So when this dropped in I was intrigued as to how they might have progressed and what they have done.

Well opener ‘Crossroads’ is a suitably sombre funeral sound, a musical intro, but it seems the band stood at those very crossroads and pondered their direction. From ‘The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life’ it is plain that they have taken a decisive, different direction. This song retains some of the funeral aspect, but, in keyboard driven melodic hands it steps gracefully into a broader realm of doom/death. Beautifully arranged vocals, a harder riff higher in the mix, saxophone, and an elegance that kind of brings My Dying Bride together with Dead Can Dance or Elend in a waltz. However it is ‘Furious Thoughts Of Tranquility’ where this album really pulls through the character. Narrow House are a truly class act; deliberate, imperious, thoughtful and this is sort instrumental of verve and vibrant keyboards that leads us to ‘The Midwife Of Sorrows’. It retains that veneer of doom but with a faster, harder riff and the combination of keyboards and saxophone it moves further into a stranger realm. With electronic tinged lead vocals, operatic backing voices and a grim tone it is kind of reminiscent of The Kovenant yet far superior. It splices a semi-industrial feel to a Gothic melodic doom death sound with outbursts of martial rhythms punctuating the album’s overall theme of war.

They really have mastered the combination here of a bright and modern sounding guitar, hard edged and dense, with the melody of piano and saxophone and strings to create a classical metal sound heavy with emotion and atmosphere. A Forest Of Stars modern descendants maybe. Nor do they over-labour things; an album of a perfectly formed forty odd minutes and songs between three and five mean this is a clean, lean art deco train gliding and pushing forward with power to spare and flowing from station to station with rare ease. And I hate to bang on about it, but the use of the saxophone with the guitar is just about the best I’ve heard since the dim and distant days of Van Der Graaf Generator.

Everything here is an exercise in quality and sumptuous class, wrapping us in a timeless landscape of the neo-classical meets Blade Runner, the waltz of a world of satin forever drenched in war. Narrow House have, by not taking the obvious turn at their crossroads, produced a dark, intriguing work and the sound of an empire going down in flames. Dark and undeniably beautiful, this neo-classical doom for those with a taste for the finer things in life. Love it.

Author: Gizmo

Review
Doom-Metal.com
10/10
13.08.2014

You could, I suppose, say that the Narrow House has widened considerably, although you might regret such a terrible pun in years to come. It has, though, as the Ukrainian outfit move away from the intelligent but relatively genre-defined Funeral Doom of their debut 'A Key To Panngrieb'. In truth, even the unusual incorporation of a prominent cello on that album didn't give much of a clue as to how far and how quickly they would travel, in a radically different direction. It took the actual release of 'Thanathonaut' to do that, and – despite the band's commendable willingness to create and share diary videos along the way – I don't mind admitting that it still came as a real surprise to me.

Fortunately, I should add, not in a bad way at all.

At first listen, the only question was not how good the album is, but how Doom: a debate slightly fuelled by the Solitude CD release being through the BadMoodMan Music sublabel, which handles their more Gothic/Rock-leaning offerings. And, yes, it could be categorised as particularly doomy Dark Metal, assuming there was much value in arguing where, exactly, the border lies between Gothic/Death/Doom Metal and Goth-tinged Death/Doom-influenced Metal. Alternatively, since Narrow House describe themselves as an 'Apocalyptic Doom' band, and 'Thanathonaut' is an album about apocalypse, laden with Doom motifs and moods, one could simply avoid that hair-splitting exercise and go straight to 'it's Doom'.

Putting the semantics aside momentarily, what you get with the standard release is the usual high-standard Solitude package: dramatic artwork, informative glossy booklet and crisp production. The band also offered a limited, self-produced digipack version containing all that and more; and kudos to them for doing so – such personalised touches are a meaningful effort worth appreciating.

The album inside is quite short, at just over 40 minutes, comprising 9 original tracks and a cover – in Russian - of Virgin Black's 'Renaissance' ('Возрождение'). To deal with this latter first: obviously few people are able to emulate the way Rowan London's idiosyncratic tenor delivery winds through often minimalist instrumentation, so Narrow House have approached it with a muscular, pacier musical transcription and a hoarse, snarling vocal. This reinterpretation gives it an aggressive edge not found in the pathos of the original, but far more suited to the character of this album, and, overall, is a worthy and intelligent reimagining of a classic track.

It also demonstrates a number of the staples found throughout the preceding body of the album: samples - discussing weaponry - linking the tracks; heavy, pulsating percussion; guitar-work that lays down both Death/Doom riffing and intense lead breaks; clean and more extreme vocals both laid back into the mix; and the liberal addition of classical/symphonic contributions (choirs, cello, contrabass, saxophone and, of course, keyboards). That may sound like an eclectic combination, largely because it is, but it works - with a vengeance. The combined layers of instrumentation give it a smooth lushness that, in part, is what distracts from the Doom elements which form a backbone to proceedings. Those ensure that there is plenty of dark, sombre heaviness lurking behind even the most soaring of sax melodies – which are worthy of special mention, both as a genuinely rare instrument in this field and for their sublime nature.

It's actually quite hard to pick out any high spots against such an extraordinarily, consistently brilliant construction. 'Thanathonaut' paces itself superbly, without a wasted moment, dipping at will into gentler interludes and urgent bursts of momentum, mixing the mournful groan of the cello with some ultra-sharp guitar lines, dragging in moments of funereal battery and surging choral movement as it goes. Even the mild – and only possible - criticism that the headlong dive towards Armageddon is a somewhat hackneyed subject seems inappropriate, given the current state of affairs in the Ukraine - if anything, having seen the news footage, it gives an additional poignancy to the material. I will, however, nominate a couple of personal favourite tracks: the stomping, furious whirl of 'The Midwife To Sorrows' and the sad, beautiful instrumental 'Doom Over Valiria' – between them, they sum up the breadth and majesty that is on offer here.

Okay, that's quite a lot of superlatives, but I stand by all of them. I'd describe this a genuinely important album: a turning-point for the band, and possibly more than that. Narrow House have produced something quite unique with 'Thanathonaut', in my opinion a sufficiently radical and enthralling creation to stand comparison with other seminal self-redefinitions like My Dying Bride's 'Turn Loose The Swans', Katatonia's 'Discouraged Ones' or Anathema's 'Eternity'. Only one of those went on to epitomise a Doom genre, of course, and it remains to be seen whether similar odds apply here. Still, even if Narrow House choose to head off at a tangent in future, right now they're demonstrating in the best way possible that the boundaries of Doom can still be pushed into new and exciting places.

Author: Mike Liassides

Review
Forgotten Path
3/10

Kiev based band Narrow House presents their second studio album “Thanathonaut”. I’m a bit surprised as to why “Solitude Productions” sub-label released this very average album. Does every Doom Metal album get to see light nowadays? On second thought, the same label has published worse works than this one in the past...
I’m not certain that there is anything worth mentioning about “Thanathonaut”. It’s a light Doom Metal release accompanied by unpleasant, sentimental saxophone. In my opinion, only Coltrane and Brotzman can make sax sound really good and only Zorn can incorporate it into Metal. Besides saxophone there are plenty of acoustic elements and keyboards, which bring the music closer to a Symphonic Doom sound. Often Narrow House sounds nothing like Metal and could be put next to Anathema. There are some heavy guitars on the surface, but the tracks are based on cheap piano notes and unimpressive guitar solos. The vocals do not play a big part; they just appear in a form of speech or choir echoes, which soon fade away. The psychedelic thoughts mentioned in the lyrics do not appear in the music and there’s not much melodiousness. Narrow House describes themselves as an apocalyptic Doom Metal band, but that is very misleading. There’s an abundance of romantic, light Ambient, but not a trace of energy or expression. Frankly, I got nothing out of “Thanathonaut”, but teenage Doom fans might.

Author: Bloodie

Review
Kaosguards

Nous avions attiré votre attention sur le premier album des Ukrainiens de NARROW HOUSE (« A Key To Panngrieb », chroniqué ici) et nous ne pouvons que réitérer la manœuvre avec ce second opus en nette progression.

Si NARROW HOUSE demeure affilié au Funeral Doom, il dénote une écriture plus personnelle, plus affirmée et plus variée. Tout d'abord, le son général est dorénavant moins monolithique, plus sec et plus aéré, avec un rendu plus tranchant et plus organique. Ensuite, les compositions sont nettement plus courtes. Même quand elles sont composées de plusieurs séquences agencées selon une progression complexe (le superbe titre éponyme par exemple), le groupe fait preuve d'un souci constant d'efficacité et de concision.

Mais le signe le plus manifeste que NARROW HOUSE s'affranchit de ses influences Funeral Doom et affirme une personnalité originale réside dans la richesse des arrangements. Le groupe semble ne s'être rien interdit : violoncelle, piano, claviers divers, saxophone... autant d'instruments qui viennent rehausser l'austérité du substrat Metal. Attention, il ne s'agit pas seulement de pastilles exotiques mais bien d'éléments constitutifs des compositions, utilisés aussi bien en tant qu'arrangements stricto sensu qu'en tant que porteurs de rythmiques et de mélodies. Faire preuve d'audace est une chose, transformer cette audace en un résultat convaincant en est une autre. Force est de constater que NARROW HOUSE fait sonner l'ensemble de manière tout à fait naturelle et seuls les esprits bornés trouveront à y redire. Car les compositions demeurent foncièrement sombres et rampantes.

Chapeau bas, messieurs.

Author: Alain Lavanne