Alphabetical Discovery - Week E, Day Seven: Esoteric

For those who like their music long and winding, brooding and serious, mystical and spiritual, varied and eclectic, crushingly dreary and poignantly wispy listen to Esoteric. The British band are a glowing obelisk in the funeral-doom landscape; formed in 1992 they have released six full-lengths, each consistently transfixing and beautiful. Their sound, particularly on their two most recent albums - 2008's The Maniacal Vale and 2011's Paragon of Dissonance - are vastly more melodic than your usual melancholic dirge-like approach to funeral-doom. They, whoever they are, say that funerals should be a celebration of life, albeit a solemn one, and perhaps this rings true with Esoteric - but not strongly I should add. A tenderness runs through their songs - guitar leads explore the solemn soundscapes with an imaginative freedom, careering off the typically dense vocals, slamming, steady drum-work and throbbing bass lines. Their sound is, I suppose, progressive - songs often fizzle from their composed starting points, rooted in a traditional doom sound, into something more cosmic, frenzied and, well, esoteric. Keyboards and ambient sounds, changes in tempo, vocal acrobatics - low growls switch to mid-ranged grunts to higher shrieks - and riffs progressions all merge merely to unravel with an exploratory psychedelic freedom, it all comes together to form a burning ball of funeral-doom energy that builds only to burst and seep like a dying star. Their lyrics reflect the music, touching on human states of misanthropy, isolation and existential worry and the more cosmic concerns of infinite space and the dream-state. Esoteric have a very interesting and truly, in the truest sense of the word - truly - epic sound that captures the imagination expertly. 

Note: Starting tomorrow - with the beginning of Week F - I will be posting a discovery post every other day rather than every day. I'm doing this because I'd like to give myself some more time to review new albums and post new content. Stopping things getting stale and giving myself a bit more breathing space.