Tyranny - Bleak Vistae (2004)

I tend to really enjoy this time of the year. Its when the ungodly warm summer heat finally begins to lessen, the days get shorter and the thought that autumn is nearing is always a plus too. This has always traditionally been the time of the year where I tend to slip into one of my moods of gloom and pretty much listen to just black and doom metal and other darker forms of music until the winter passes. Finnish funeral doom masters, Tyranny, are definitely a great band to start the season with.

Formed in Lahti, Finland by Matti Mäkelä & Lauri Lindqvist (both members of Wormphlegm) in 2001, 'Bleak Vistae' was the bands first release, via Firebox Records. Although just three songs in total this EP is almost forty five minutes in length and features some of the most soul crushingly heavy funeral doom I've personally ever heard.

Tyranny: Dirge of Agony

As the first riffs of 'Passing Through Ague' leave my stereo speakers its clear right from the start that these two are about to take me on a melancholic and overwhelmingly heavy journey. Tyranny uses a lead guitar over the rumbling pulverizing rhythm guitar, which creates a very agonizingly dark atmosphere, which I don't seem to recall many other funeral doom bands using. The riffs of course are utterly painful and creepy in their slow plodding form and the occasional usage of some backing synths only enhances the mood further. The vocals are performed in a utterly low guttural manner, though they are different than your average death metal vocals simply because they tend to lack a since of enthusiasm and just sound forlorn, almost as if the vocalist is slowly dying. The drummer mostly sticks to just striking the cymbals and toms throughout the entire recording and at no point is there any double bass or really anything fast or heavy about them.

I'm sure some people could argue and say this EP or this genre in general is very boring, because frankly there isn't much diversity throughout this recording, but it has such a richly grim and despondent mood that it becomes trance like after just one song and pulls you in and doesn't let go until its finished. 'Bleak Vistae' feels like an upcoming storm, slowly building to something grander, but as the EP comes to its close the last few minutes are nothing more than dark ambiance, perhaps the final sign of life before death...