HellLight - Journey Through Endless Storms (CD)

Review
Doom Metal Haven
9/10
24.09.2015

Brazil’s masters of misery have created a stunning album of slow, delicate funeral doom that reeks of quality and personality. The latest release from the Sao Paulo band, who started out back in 1996, drips with heartfelt emotion and majestic musicality.

This is 80 minutes of melody and sorrow, and the eight tracks on offer are consistently excellent. The songs are carefully constructed so ensure that they flow gracefully and build momentum. From the choral backing to the sharp-edged riffs that cut through the gloom, ‘Journey Through Endless Storms’ is effortlessly epic. Gentle keyboards are a constant and comforting companion amid the shadows.

With tracks such as ‘Distant Light That Fades’, HellLight can be reminiscent of Hamferd in their ability to combine light and dark, decorating their bleak, pummelling heaviness with sparkling flourishes of imagination.

There are a few brief occasions when it seems a song might plateau or drift away, but, at those moments, guitarist, singer and founding member Fabio de Paula always pulls it back from the precipice and, before you know it, you are transported by yet another glorious solo or soul-crushing riff. De Paula also intersperses his rumbling growl with soaring clean vocals, which are used sparingly and to maximum effect as they get your pulse racing.

Every song offers something new and intriguing, all tightly bound within the band’s signature sound. HellLight are able to pack a lot of ideas into their music while treading a careful path to ensure that the songs do not become jumbled or unfocused. This is a band that has been perfecting its art for 20 years, and all of that experience shows.

If the band’s 2013 album ‘No God Above, No Devil Below’ was impressive, then this is even better. Mature and sophisticated – and often quietly adventurous – ‘Journey Through Endless Storms’ is an album of rare depth and an understated masterwork of melodic doom.

Author: DoomMetalHeaven

Review
Echoes and Dust
30.09.2015

If you’ve ever stood in a forest in the pouring rain and grinned from ear to ear at the size, space and elementalness – yes, that’s a word – of it all, then you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say this album is the sonic equivalent of standing in a forest in the pouring rain. If you haven’t, then try it at your first opportunity. Then buy this album and all will become clear. In the meantime, I’ll try to explain what I am on about without turning this review into a long and tortured metaphor.

You see, Journey Through Endless Storm is massive. It’s almost an hour and a half long and only contains eight songs. It contains big, low, slow-moving funereal riffs, glacial drums and majestic keyboards, over which the vocalist growls (mostly) and occasionally lets rip with some impressive near-operatic passages. It is a lot to take in. And by rights, it should be as depressing as hell.

But it’s not. Just like standing in the middle of nowhere being soaked, this album is at times uplifting, sometimes melancholy, occasionally overlong, but throughout there is a sense that there is something brighter on the way. It’s all about your mindset – or in the case of standing in the rain, having the right clothes.

It begins with the 12-minute title track, which starts with the sound of a storm (which continues between each song) and a disconnected female chanting, before slabs of guitar and synth crash in, along with the growling. A word on the electronics: there is just enough of them to give some breathing space and to escape the suffocating claustrophobia that permeates doom of this nature, but they are reined in enough to avoid any symphonic or prog accusations.

Around six minutes into the first song, you get the first clue that this outfit from Brazil care about melody more than your average funeral doom band, when the guitar sets off on a soaring, almost new-age solo. And there are more nods to tunefulness later in the song when the growling ends and the vocalist starts singing properly. And man, he has quite a voice.

There are more passages that grab your gut and open your eyes (think along the lines of the chorus to Iron Maiden’s ‘Run to the Hills’ except at the pace of a tree growing) throughout the album at expertly timed spots; just as you begin to wear of the leaden riffage, a passage of beautiful guitar, melancholy keyboards or soaring vocals keeps things interesting. They take a while to surface, granted, but when they do it’s nice.

The second song, ‘Dive in the Dark’ has all of the above elements contained in its 10 minutes – it flies by, despite the listener’s misgivings after a couple of minutes’ plodding. Even a song like ‘Cemetherapy’, which has bleak lyrics like “no signs of life”, still escapes a depressive feeling – and by the piano repeating a major-chord arpeggio in the background, then a slippery bass solo over synthesized strings.

‘Beyond Stars’ follows and it is a highlight. It also has a keyboard in the background, which alternates between a major and minor refrain, giving the tune a bit of tension; or even anticipation – not dissimilar to seeing a bit of blue sky peek through when you are being drenched by the ever-present storm on this album. And the skies clear at the end when a clean guitar replaces the keyboard, which in turn accompanies with some more strings. Then the drums return. Big time. Double kicks herald an epic guitar solo, which then fades to more rain and thunder. ‘Shapeless Form of Emptiness’ carries on the epic motif but by this stage of the album, if you’ve tackled the whole thing in one sitting, it is a little much to take.

In fact there are a couple of songs which may not have been missed had they been cut from the final album – ‘Time’ is hard work to get to the end, for instance – and to listen to the whole work from start to finish requires commitment. If they’d have made this five or six songs long – including, the final track, with the piano and the female on vocals from the beginning, which provides a calming, if melancholy, end to the album – they’d have had a masterpiece.

Author: Matt Butler

Review
The Blog of Doom
11.09.2015

The always reliable Solitude Productions hits another homerun with the 5th album from the Brazilian Funeral Doom/Death Metal quartet. Slow and haunting throughout, the record conjures up an absolutely devastating melancholy. Every track begins and ends with rain, which always works for some reason.

Review
The Independent Voice
4.5/5
28.09.2015

Often described as lords of the Brazilian doom metal scene, Hellight are a trio from Sao Paulo whose influences span from Bathory to Candlemass. Their most recent endeavour Journey Through the Endless Storms offers up a tear jerking array of abysmal noise that is as formidable to the doom metal genre as it is menacing to the ear.

Unveiling themselves with an aura of darkness, Hellight’s ability to retain a sense of foreboding becomes apparent from the outset. Stepping out of an orchestral backdrop, the slow guitars and guttural vocals erupt in full gloominess. Full of atmosphere and cloaked in a shadowy veil, the giant sized riffs and agonizing vocals drag everything forward as if carrying a gravestone to a funeral.

The band attains an all out catharsis in the guitars of ‘Dive In the Dark’ which depicts a mournful procession, amidst weighty drum rolls. Meanwhile, the band’s impressive use of lead guitar halts and beckons towards introspective misery.

The grief stricken whispers found in ‘Time’ slides into sombre laments as the enraged double kick peddle simmer effortlessly. However, it is the piano-led moments of anguish that will grab you by the throat more than anything!

The album may come off as being too lengthy for the average ear, and too bleak for the faint of heart. Nevertheless, the overwhelming weight of ’Beyond Stars’ shows that the band are unwilling to let anyone depart before their ceremony is done.

What makes this an essential listen for 2015 is that they don’t just deliver slowed-down metallic anthems like their contemporaries. What’s here is an essence of majesty and self-reflection that play upon your senses and throw you into your very own burial ground. If these guys do not become globally recognised as the most promising force within the doom metal genre, then there is something seriously wrong with the world!

Author: Spencer

Review
Gorgers Metall
16.09.2015

Brazilian HellLight has been around for almost 20 years, but has practically just been active on the release-front for the past ten years. They have come to album number five, but it doesn't seem like they have received very much attention. Hopefully, that is about to change.
I enjoyed their third album ...and Then, the Light of Consciousness Became Hell... (2010), but I'm afraid it was forgotten before it was properly absorbed. I was certainly not prepared for what I had in store before I heard the title song on the interweb a week and a half ago.
Here we find seven songs ranging from 8 to 13 minutes, plus a brief finishing track.

The title track is allowed to open this magnum opus. Dreary rain, caressing violins, deep, delicate organs, heavy strokes at downtuned guitars, thumping bass, slow beats, gentle piano usage and superb sound. The guitar tones lingers and vibrates in the air. Other instruments come and go. Heavy grieving melodies are galvanize with rich resounding quality sound and basement growls. Majestically. Hypnotizing. For twelve full minutes.

Journey Through Endless Storm is not endless, but the album has much more to offer. There are still well above an hour to go. This grand symphony lasts for almost 80 minutes.
Can HellLight really maintain their quality through such a duration?

Nothing beats the title track, but the subsequent tristesse follows just behind as a crestfallen funeral procession.

Funeral doom can be a cruelly drowsy genre where much time is spent on minimal progression. Riffs can be repeated until the eleventh hour. HellLight however knows the importance of applying small adjustments along the way, and in the most prolonged parts they make sure riffs and sound captivates the listener throughout the entire sections.
We come across mournfully clean vocals, enchanting guitars and even increasing pace on this journey. In the song Time for instance, we encounter delicate blast beats.

Hell yes, HellLight verily delivers the goods with solid diversity and hefty sound. Journey Through Endless Storm is a chapter of sorrow you don't want to miss out if funeral doom fits your taste.