Winter is undeniably creeping forward as the nights draw longer and the cold ever sharper. Even aside from this, happenings feel ultimately bleak and the world is increasingly grief-stricken as a result. Perhaps suitably, Convocation makes a welcome return; a band that conjures that sense of foreboding and misery, if in a general sense rather than at specific events.

 

As a result, No Dawn For The Caliginous Night (Everlasting Spew) is a welcome and beautiful if simultaneously distressing affair.

 

Following a brief atmospheric introduction, album opener “Graveless Yet Dead” emerges showcasing its daunting presence with a glacial pace and sheer weight, bolstered by church-like organ/synths and backing choral vocals. This is immensely haunting in tone as the guttural and inhuman growls of MN command the bleakness even further.

Closer to Funeral Doom in pace overall, there are moments which evoke their Death Metal roots; the slightly increased pace and further complexity of drum passages in the likes of “Atychiphobia” displays a near eerie and piercing backing string instrumentation. It is a largely similar formula that permeates throughout this album but manages to feel as powerful and sonorous throughout, raising intensity in parts. For example, MN’s vocals hit upon an increased level of distress and woe in “Lepers and Derelicts” with some truly heartbreaking wails.

 

It does feel like Funeral Doom is in a rude state of health and popularity in recent years (it isn’t hard to imagine why) and amongst that thrall, Convocation has been an underrated but truly excellent entity and this is surely their crowning moment so far. Funeral Doom is a challenging style to master and truly capture imagination but Convocation have done that with both an understated and deceptive level of diversity within their sound, which is hugely emotionally resonant.

 

Times are bleak in many ways and this is a suitably depressive companion.

 

Buy the album here:

https://everlastingspewrecords.bandcamp.com/album/no-dawn-for-the-caliginous-night

 

8 / 10

CHRIS TIPPELL