Black Trillium are a dark & deeply creative death/doom metal act from Sydney that have been brewing up raw, emotive and incredibly dynamic sonic offerings since 2010. While it’s been a while since we’ve heard from the duo, with 2020 marking 10 years for the band, they have an all-new album entitled ‘The Fatal Shore’ which we reviewed below. For those that are fans of such acts as Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and such but with a little twist here and there, this might be an album for you.
Despite “The Fatal Shore” having only 5 tracks on offer, this is being touted as a full-length album and in fairness, some of the songs on here are quite lengthy and that starts with the opening track “Conviction” which stands at almost 10 minutes. As expected for a song this long, the track takes things on a bit of a journey as it blends melody over the top of heavy wall of guitars and switching from clean, melodic vocals to deep growls. Interestingly the music itself doesn’t reflect the vocal styles and instead remains consistent with the melodies dictating where the overall sound takes focus.
The band shorten things up a bit with the next two tracks, “Banished” which features a guest appearance by Tim Charles from Ne Obliviscaris on the strings and “Diseased”, both of which are very different songs. “Banished” steps a little away from the extreme sides of the death doom genre and goes more into stoner rock territory, at least from the way the guitar riffs lead the track, thanks in part to Tim’s addition to the song on the strings. Things eventually progress into the band’s natural state before closing out and launching into black metal teritory in the opening sequence to “Diseased”. Rest assured though, that doesn’t last long as the Sydney act bring it back to earth and introduce some tasty riffs and down tempo grooves before descending down into melancholic doomy landscapes.
“Haunted Oceans” follows right after and it’s signature stuff from Black Trillium, for those familiar with the band’s sound but they save the best for last in the title track to close things out. The opening intro featuring Kelvin Carlsson on harmonica is brilliant and immediately conjures up images of eerie streets in a dusty ghost town from some spaghetti western film. There’s an almost noir-like quality here too as the song progresses into doom territory and combined with that country flavor gives off a sort of southern doom metal feel. The band stretch it out over the course of over 9 minutes before crashing into full drone mode, fading out with crashes of guitar noises and such.
Easily the strongest song on this release and one that will leave a mark on listeners checking out Black Trillium for the first time. The death doom stuff is not necessarily for everyone as it does have it’s own unique flavor but for fans of this stuff, there’s little reason to dismiss this.
7/10
TRACKLIST
Conviction
Banished
Diseased
Haunted Oceans
The Fatal Shore
