Album of the day: Mournful Congregation – The Unspoken Hymns

Praise for Mournful Congregation‘s The Unspoken Hymns from San Francisco’s aQuarius Records: It’s been a while since we hauled out the extra o’s, but really it’s sorta impossible to describe Australian ultra doomlords Mournful Congregation without a bunch of em, cuz this is truly some epic, grim, funereal dooooooooooooooooooooom. Which avid readers of the aQ list will understand as shorthand for creeping glacial tempos, mournful, melancholy melodies, tarpit riffage, deep bellowed vox, pounding slow motion drums, atmospheric and fantastically depressive and miserable.

The strange thing is, these guys crank out records like crazy, yet this is the first time we’ve reviewed a proper record of theirs, the only other time they’ve made it on the list, was via the Four Burials record, a split with Loss, Orthodox and Otesanek. And actually this collection right here gathers up various tracks from splits and comps, INCLUDING a partially re-recorded version of their song from that split, which we described thusly:

“Legendary purveyors of true doom, Australia’s Mournful Congregation, whose sound is sad and sorrowful, melancholy and miserable, a gorgeously epic lugubrious crawl, super melodic, but totally washed out and painted in sweeping shades of black and grey. Think Skepticism, Thergothon, Esoteric, Asunder, the sort of dark, slow motion, soul stirring creep we could listen to forever.”

Which indeed pretty much describes everything here, fans of the above mentioned bands who are somehow not already fans of these guys might as well start here. Five tracks, 43 minutes, including the aforementioned Four Burials track, as well as their tracks from the tribute to Thergothon, a split 10″ with Stone Wings, a split 7″ with Stabat Mater, and a split 7″ with Worship, although we were definitely wondering how they managed to cram 8+ minutes onto a 7″.

Regardless, the sounds here are epic and dark, mournful and melancholy, crushing and gloriously despondent, the perfect soundtrack for black thoughts and broken souls, and essential doooooooooooooom for sure…

At 40 years old, Aquarius is the oldest independent record store in San Francisco. We try to only carry music we love, and we’re always searching for more new, cool, weird and wonderful music. All of which we then share with you, our loyal customers.

Tags: 20 Buck Spin, Album of the day, Aquarius Records, doom, Mournful-Congregation, The Unspoken Hymns

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 24th, 2011 at 1:50 pm and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.