There are bands that just play doom. And there are bands that live inside it. DYSEMBLEM clearly belong to the second category.
Their third full-length album, ‘Buried By The Weight Of The Light’, is an outpouring of heavy-hearted laments from a mind demonized and buried by despair — and we mean that in the best possible way. Drawing from the deepest, darkest sources of primitive Black, Death and Doom Metal, this trio manages to build something that sounds at once like an ancient relic and a living, breathing entity.
A bit of history for those who don’t know them: Dysemblem were born in 2012 from Aees (also known from Phaëthon), who recorded three demos over the following years with strong influences from Celtic Frost and a riff-driven Death/Doom aesthetic, later enriched by the blackened death mood of the early 90s — think Samael, Thou Art Lord and the like. Most of that material eventually found its place on the debut album ‘Strength Of Giants’ (2016), where drummer Nuctemeron (Necrovorous, Sacral Rage etc.) joined, and the band began to explore atmospheric yet minimalist paths — moments that referenced Desecresy, others Hellhammer, without ever getting trapped in any of them.
‘Autotomy’ (2019) followed with a more polished sound and heavier emphasis on the Black Metal color, while some demo-era tracks were brought back to life with a completely different atmospheric charge.
Now, in 2024, Dysemblem return as a trio — with the addition of guitarist/bassist T. (Burial Hordes, ex-Dead Congregation) — and the result is their most coherent and mature work. The new album looks back to the cantankerous, raw Death/Doom atmosphere of the early 90s that characterized the debut, but this time with double the invocation of early Second Wave Black Metal.
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If you love Goatlord and early Cianide — where 80s doom metal riffcraft meets the most primitive death — then this album is made for you. The opener “Descent” begins like something taken straight out of Misery’s ‘Mystic’, a blackened explosion that doesn’t immediately reveal the band’s cards. But once you reach “Graven Gardens” and especially “Treasures Of Terror” — the eight-minute masterpiece in the middle of the record — the puzzle falls into place and the image that emerges is chillingly beautiful.
“Excavation Nightmares” opens the second half with doom-punk frenzy — just black metal riffs, cantankerous beats, and abrupt doom pauses that hit you unexpectedly. It’s the track that resembles the first album’s DNA the most: raw, primitive, indiscriminately authentic. Completely on the contrary, “Under The Aegis Of Thunder” is something novel for Dysemblem — a heavy metal inspired black metal track with a thrashing post-punk breakdown in its last third that pleasantly catches you off guard.
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‘Buried By The Weight Of The Light’ isn’t an album for everyone. It doesn’t seek easy access, it makes no concessions to the mainstream, and it doesn’t explain itself. It flows like black water in a dark cave — slowly, inevitably, with a cold certainty that swallows you. The melancholy and existential anguish of Doom permeate every corner of the record, even in its most aggressive moments.
Dysemblem have built something that is clearly their own — a sonic tapestry of ancient traditions brought back to life with new, personal meaning. Their work holds a power that is rare in bands of this space: the sense that these people mean every note they play.
Unreservedly recommended.
