Albums: Dwelling of Duels: DS Month (June 2025)
Situationship
Reviews
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We’re starting with the deep cuts I see. Starting with the longies too. Reverby guitar sounds great and atmospheric. Not huge on the drum sound, but it might sound better once it goes faster. Vocal performance is restrained in a good way, very fun performance. Wall of sound hits me like truck, though I’m still not a fan of the snare, doesn’t come through the thickness of the sound well and it’s missing some punch. Really love the vibe of everything else though, do I hear a faint touch of growls in the background? Now it’s going from sludge to black metal, really like how this arrangement progresses. Arrangement wise this is fantastic, when you see the length you immediately worry about how the time will be spent, but it flows really well and it really earns its length, lots of details, cool transitions and very awesome performances.
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Doom metal to open the month is rad af. Tasty riffage and great vocal across the board, both clean and harshies. Drum mix is lacking balance – overall too quiet for most of the piece. Kick is nice and clear, snare works for the mix but needs a couple dB boost, hats and overhead cymbals are much too quiet even for the style. Let them boombams loose!
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I do not like this genre in general due to the scary monster voice, but the overall product seems very nicely done and thoughtfully mixed. I would recommend to folks who like the genre.
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Fucking funeral doom opener. YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU. That opening guitar note was heavenly for me. The synth comes in perfectly for that eerie sci-fi sort of vibe, but then the additional guitar and vocals take the track into the absolute depths. Singer here is top notch in my opinion. Growling vocalist is also nailing it. Only gripe with the production might be the drums sounding a bit mechanical and not as full as I’d want, but that’s also a stylistic thing. Toms and cymbals could for sure be a bit louder though.
Guitar tones are on point and very pleasant to listen to.
The track itself progresses in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s six minutes. Great job.
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I love this scary monster voice genre personally 😀 This is right up my alley – arrangement is brooding and thoughtfully crafted, there’s a great sense of escalation as the song goes on. The guitar tones are excellent and I really love the vocal performances as well. The drum mix is a weak link here, they’re just too quiet compared to everything else in a way that doesn’t feel intentional as a genre convention. The vocals also feel mixed quietly. I rated this one highly, it gets more right than it misses the mark on, but I would love to hear the drum mix improved.
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Really amazing vibes, love the growl vocals and how they’re layered under the melodic vocals.
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The vocal performance is so gooooood! I’m very picky about my doom metal – I feel like the way the dynamics are laid out is kind of static but maybe that’s good for the style – I can’t speak to that.
I would say that I see folks mentioning the drum mix and it definitely could be a little bit more solid. Again maybe some extra love and layers to give it more interstitial arcs beyond the 6 minutes.
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This is going to be a metal banger, isn’t it? The intro leads up to that expectation, as well as those really nicely done low lyrics. I liked the female vocal delivery the most, but other standouts include the scream vox around 5m in, and the nice clear distorted guitar at about 4:40 or so. This is good music.
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Nice growls! I like how they’re under the main vocal. Reminds me the of early 2000’s! Like Flyleaf or Lacuna Coil. Everything is pretty clear but sounds little lopsided on the high end.
I say this every time I review: I am picky about electric guitar lead tones. I think the clean arpeggios feel a little too fat, I would like some sparkle on them. And the distorted lead feels shallow – it would benefit from some mids and taking the highs down a tad. Oh, actually I do like how the EG leads sound at 5:30 as they harmonize.
Very cool!
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Love that reverb on the snare, im not digging the song untill 3 minutes, woa the guitar tone
this is so doom metal, thx anon gg
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Some nice dark tones to open this one off, deep acoustic strums vs the soundscapes gives an ominous vibe. While I like some of the emphasis of the drum hits, it originally feels a bit too scattered and doesn’t help to give a consistent time flow. Nice dark, smoky tones from the female vocalist. Time gets a little more consistent about the 1:10 mark, but I feel like the vocalist is getting swallowed a bit by the instrumentals. Snare tone is a bit too echoey and deep for me, feel like for this something sharper would work a bit better. I notice the second growly vocals as the backing echo, but it’s pretty subdued, would like that to come up a bit more for a contrast. The one downside with the growly vocals taking over at the 3 minute mark is that it’s pretty hard for me to distinguish what the lyrics are. We really take off around the 4:20 mark, with the drums and guitars going into overdrive. That shift though then does drown out the growl vocals when they come back in, definitely could use a little more balancing here. I do like the transition into the ending segment – nice and clean to wrap this up. Overall, some issues with balance, but great start to the month!
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So I dig. It works well for the style. The biggest thing I would focus on is drum mixing and programming in the future. Even just some more smaller fills, or better fills, along with some additional love to the drum production can go a LONG way. I would also suggest looking into what can be done to improve vocal clarity; some of it might come at the source recording instead of mixing; growling is hard. I get that the style is not complete clarity, but when dealing with vocals, on average it’s better to have as much clarity as possible. Still, this is one hell of a cool entry! I definitely love stoner/funeral/etc doom. Good stuff!
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I’ve said it before, growls are not my thing. However, this was a nice surprise! The two vocal performances are great for this genre, and the music is dark and moody (just how we like it around these parts). No idea about the source, but nice choice to ensure you open the listening party.
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