Aaaaah, 'tis the season! How best to celebrate Christmas with dark and doomy metal?

The international doom metal collective Aphonic Threnody consists of members from the UK, Hungary, Italy and Belgium, and they are united in darkness, that's for sure. With a debut full-length consisting of a handful of songs that clock up between ten and eighteen minutes, the international crew make a pretty clear statement: We're taking our time, and we mean it; this is DOOM! The tempo is as you might expect low, and there is plenty of time for Arcana Coelestia drummer Marco Z to make lots of fills, and for guitarists Riccardo V and Zack Z to drag long-drawn melody out of the axes. Roberto M's vocal is a rasping growl and is therefore, as is more than often the case in death metal, not putting so much focus on actual lyrics, but more on the voice as an additional instrument.

An element of My Dying Bride cannot be denied, especially the track Our Way to the Ground provides that immediate association with the beautiful, melodic harmonies, but those of you who know me will acknowledge that this is a good thing.

'When Death Comes' should be under any funeral doom fan's Christmas tree. Merry dark season.