Review: Mournful Congregation - The Incubus of Karma

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Release Date: March 23rd
Label: Osmose Productions
Album Link


     After 6 years, Australia's Mournful Congregation follow up their magnum opus The Book of Kings with another monumentally heavy slab of sarcophagial Funeral Doom Metal. Moving at the pace of a funeral procession, this album never ceases to be creative, dark, beautiful, and an incredible journey. Spanning an hour and twenty minutes, this album crosses every plane of the genre and is a great introductory piece to the band's style (if there are any first time listeners here).


     The genre of Funeral Doom Metal is a very diverse and ultimately a poor label for so many diverse bands and styles of music. Whereas many bands come off as evil, otherworldly, and dissonant, Nortt and Evoken being prime examples, Mournful Congregation implement melody, acoustics, choirs, and spoken word passages. They are a very different band who are given a great amount of respect within this very niche genre, I myself waited with bated breath until today to even listen to this album, but after digesting it several times over today I am ready to dive in.

      Pounding drums and guitar feedback fade in and we have our first offering, "The Indwelling Ascent" though simply the three minute album intro it is just as memorable as the following tracks. Possibly this albums greatest strength is the fact that despite being slow (and drudging as permits the genre), The Incubus of Karma does not overstay its welcome. Four of the six tracks on this album pass the fourteen minute mark, with the longest and final track being twenty-two minutes long. They are all diverse and strong, keeping the same musical themes while maintaining the snail's pace that precedes the band. Harmonising guitar solos last minutes here, and sublime choirs break through the gloom of this band's lead vocalist/guitarist Damon Good.

     Album highlight "The Rubaiyat" spans eighteen minutes and is the more subdued and reflective of the longer tracks. Lyrically mirroring quite closely the 11th century poem "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", this track dwells on the cosmic and has some of the most neoclassical instrumentation on the album. Church Organs and Violins bleed through the immense wall of guitars and cavernous drums and create a beautifully contrasted atmosphere. 

     Where 2012's The Book of Kings worked around a concept of medieval religious ritual and hallowed ceremony, The Incubus of Karma looks upwards to the stars and outwards beyond. Grandiose though it may be, the palpable depression of the band's subject matter is always there:

"With a new dawn, comes a new birth
From the first utterance to the final murmur
A day is slain, and a new dawn birthed
In night's black majesty, is the new-born lain

The joy of one day, is the sorrow of the next
Arriving at the pain of the future past
Bringing to dust all mortal pride
Pitying the very lot of kings

We recall all despair borne of the last
A reflection of man's pain so vast"

- The Rubaiyat

9.5/10

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