Grimirg

Artist: 
Album Title: 
MMXV-I
Release Date: 
Friday, July 24, 2015
Review Type: 

Patologian Laboratorio Productions are a ‘new’ (see note) label owned by Aki ‘Grim666’ Klemm in order to release material from his own projects and bands especially (+ some others). Note: actually there were some releases about a decade ago from Lathspell too, but then things turned into silence for ten long years – FYI…

Anyway, the guy also runs the Patologian Laboratorio Studio, and he’s active in bands and projects such as Hautakammio (check out the review on Pimeyden Valtakunta elsewhere in this review section; this album was initially released on Aki’s label last year, and has now been re-issued via Belgium’s Immortal Frost Productions), Lathspell (out of activity right now?), Oath (which I did a review for as well last year for the Immortal Frost-release Saatanan Myrsky Yllä Pyhän Maan; see update July 24th 2014), Seal Of Beleth, Kalmankantaja or Order Of The White Hand. You will find some reviews on new stuff by Seal Of Beleth and Kalmankantaja very soon on the site…

In a pretty short period, Patologian Laboratorio Productions did release four albums, which will all be reviewed with sardonic pleasure by undersigned. This one deals with the first out of four, Grimirg’s MMXV-I. Grimirg (a coincidental palindrome or was it meant to be???) is one of the solo-projects by Grim666, being totally new, and MMXV-I is the first official release under this moniker. It’s a four-tracker with lengthy pieces that clock in between nine and twelve minutes. It comes in an edition of 200 copies only (there’s a digital version as well).

MMXV-I shows the most funereally side of this artist’s range, for being a journey through mostly suffocative and nebulae atmospheres. The opening track Solitvde starts the ambient way, and pretty soon, after about one minute, the most obscure and desolate kind of Funeral Doom enters. Ahab, Urna, Abstract Spirit, Until Death Overtakes Me, Sigihl (without the frenzy outbursts) and even Lustre, it’s just a first impression that penetrates my (hyper) brain when enjoying (indeed, ‘to enjoy’ and ‘Funeral Doom’, it’s a lapsus, but a beautiful one, I think…) this material. This stuff is ultimately slow, and I mean truly slooowww, with pretty firm riffs and rhythms, deeply gurgling grunts and quite hypnotic, sometimes even transcendental synths and keyboard lines (here’s my reference to Lustre fully revealing itself). In a track like Infinity Revealed, Grimirg introduces fairylike female vocals (not of the operatic kind), which are, in this case, extremely fitting to the whole concept of grief, desolation, introspection and intrinsic emptiness. Yes, I do feel happy right now, in case you might care.

All four compositions are pretty long-stretched, little repetitive in structure and lacking of any kind of experiment, but then again I think that they do bare the essence of funereal majesty, defined through aural expression.

93/100