Album review: Famyne – The Ground Below

It’s not often that doom metal can be described as ‘fresh’. Sprouting from the ancient cathedral city of Canterbury, however, Famyne wedge enough flighty energy and progressive possibility between their stodgy riffs and funereal timings to justify the tag. Here are five lads who’ve clearly marinated in the conventions and eccentricities of heavy music’s oldest subgenre, but they have the courage, too, for some subtle adjustments to a sound that’s been around for 50-plus years.

Pushing on from where they left off with 2018’s excellent self-titled debut, The Ground Below finds them – much like the rest of us – on dismal form. Defeated opens proceedings creaking with discontent and despair, capturing the grim wooziness of living in a world gone to shit in growling guitars and Tom Vane’s epic vocals, but never tipping over into campy melodrama. Solid Earth opens out, counterpointing bludgeoning six-strings with echoing ambience, evoking a sense of feet stuck in clay as eyes gaze at the stars. Gone throws itself overboard into a sea of creeping atmosphere, beginning with the sound of waves lapping against shore before drifting off into the endless ocean.

Stylistically, it’s a case of evolution rather than revolution, of course. As bold as these songs can seem when viewed against the constant stream of retro revivalism, they are following a trail blazed by countrymen like Paradise Lost and Anathema, as well as Scandi innovators like Opeth and Katatonia. Hell, there are even glimmers of Devin Townsend’s puff-chested proggy modernity in some of the more epic moments, like undulating seven-and-a-half-minute highlight A Submarine and the magnificent Babylon.

There is a thrilling shift into darkness in the album’s final act. The slumped desperation and frenzied guitar-solo of Once More hints at hope slipping away. The Ai pounds down the highway to hell with some excellent mainstream metal snarl in its second half. Then For My Sins sees us arrive at our infernal destination with a storm of fire and brimstone. The world keeps finding new ways to bring us down, and The Ground Below is a perfect soundtrack for the great descent...

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Paradise Lost, Opeth, Katatonia

The Ground Below is released on May 13 via Svart