Style: funeral doom/avantgarde (harsh vocals)
Review by: Daniel
Country: Czechia
Release date: 01-01-2019
NOTE: This album was originally included in the January 2019 issue of The Progressive Subway
If you can take the time to get into the world that Quercus has created in this album, you should listen to Verferum. It takes you on an intense musical experience that is reflective and powerful without coming across as pretentious, making it easily accessible to folks who don’t often listen to this style of music.
Before we dive into this album, a quick FYI. The album is long, and there are only four tracks on it, coming in at ~10:00 to ~23:00. To do this music justice, I think you have to be prepared to give it some time. That being said, let’s get into it.
Quercus’ classical influence on this album, as well as their judicious use of a pipe organ really make this album for me. I don’t think I would have ever expected to see an organ on a metal album. “Ok,” you ask, “they use it, but does it sound good?” Yes. It never feels like a gimmick or a novelty. They use an organ in Ceremony of the Night and Passacaglia D minor, White and Black Darkness, and its primary musical role is to play an ostinato, a term for a musical phrase that is continuously repeated. In this way, it has a similar role to the bass in most bands, which is what makes the organ fit into the music so seamlessly, but its tone gives the music a much heavier, somber vibe to it.
But the organ isn’t the only time Quercus looks back to western musical roots to step forward in their own work. They combine classical styles with funeral doom to make something that’s much darker and heavier than their counterparts. Their classical influence is particularly evident on “Passacaglia D minor, White and Black Darkness,” which is, effectively, a doom metal cover of Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582. Just the fact that they attempted something this ambitious is a good reason to at least give them a shot.
For its genre, the album is certainly good, but it does have its weaknesses. I wasn’t very impressed with the two other tracks on this album Journey of the Eyes and The Pu-erh Exhumed. They’re not bad, but they simply don’t really stand out like the other tracks do.
The other weakness the album has is that the track often repeat the same simple lines too often. I understand that they want to create an atmosphere, but sometimes they just do it too much, and I think that this repetition saps some of the energy this music would otherwise have.
The mix works well, but it’s nothing to write home about. The music is often so simple that mixing it isn’t nearly as complex as, say, something like Periphery IV. Because of this, the recording quality is very exposed, and it isn’t that great. That’s really just an issue of getting better mics, but fortunately that would be an easy fix. The organ also has some timing issues that stand out in the Passacaglia, but I can forgive them for this.
In a time where metal has increasingly greater electronic influences, this album offers a very interesting, ultra old-fashioned take on the funeral doom metal genre, a take that I think many of our readers will find refreshing.
Recommended tracks: Ceremony of the Night; Passacaglia D minor, White and Black Darkness
Recommended for fans of: Ahab
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: MFL Records – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook
Quercus is:
– Lukas Kudrna (vocals, bass)
– Ondrej Klasterka (guitars, drums, vocals)
– Marek Pisl (keyboard)
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