Hypnotizing all hangers-on and quartered beasts in their slow-waltzed illustration of death’s eternity these heralds of the night descending contemplate from a great distance, reaching the starved ears of those writhing for purpose with echoes of malicious dread from the watery plunge of an unnamed underground cavern. With great chiropteran wings easing shut, and life’s blood dimming amongst all doomed civilizations, so reaches out the cello striking gloom-hand of Berlin, Germany-based death metal trio Drowned for a second marbled opus seeking to delve beyond, to push adrift the congestion of the end-time’s slow encroachment. ‘Procul His‘ draws its tangled line of heavy-lidded rhythm in virtuosic abandon, a doomed-and-thrashing vision realized over the course of a decade with their own steadiness of spirit as a strong guiding hand. As a result this sophomore release is untouched by the diseases of time and trend, a classic result of texturally guided obsession and a meandering headspace stretched to the far limits away from the constraints of popular music.

Drowned have been around since 1992, assumedly inspired to participate alongside the fairly scant Berlin death metal scene at the time (Golem, Orth, Harmony Dies), Scandinavian exports of the era, and the death/doom metal of the time. We find their 90’s demo days enriched by an overcomplicated set of modes as we pass from the brutal whipping of their first demo tape (‘Demo 1993‘, 1993) to the gothic metal of their follow-up (‘Conquering the Azure‘, 1995) we’d find shades of black, death and doom reaching for a sophisticated result and landing upon curious enough obscurities which hadn’t yet found their way. The peak of this development was ‘Ærth‘ (1998) wherein the 7″ revealed a sound which was something like earliest Primordial, affected by gothic metal of the time but also attuned to black/death metal in some respects. We can consider this the end of that era and largely unimportant context altogether. I’m sure the band’ve elaborated upon the transformation that’d occurred over the next several years at some point but curiously enough they’d leaned towards something more tangibly ‘old school’ death metal in terms of their much celebrated demo tape ‘Viscera Terræ‘ (2006) which’d brought some additional interest to the band in the late 2000’s as the peak furor and popularity of Necros Christos had folks looking for and appreciating anything M. Gericke (Sijjin) had ever touched. This was my introduction to their work and probably the best starting point for new listeners seeking the foundation of the band’s style today as well as the point where founding guitarist Tlmnn aka T1‘s unique twist upon classic early 90’s atmospheric death metal dynamism sprang to life.

The stars hadn’t aligned until 2009 when the previous drummer left and T1 assembled a new line-up in 2010 including bassist/vocalist G.ST, a soon to-be longtime live bassist for The Ruins of Beverast who also features in black/doom band Essenz with drummer and engineer T2 (aka Tobias Engl of Englsound, who has recorded and mixed each of their full-lengths thus far). You could tell T1‘d hit the right verve back in 2006 but they’d made their own work of it by 2012 when a rehearsal tape (‘Rehearsal demo 12/2012‘, 2013) revealed the enduring pillar they’ve presented since then. Without diminishing the work and years it’d taken to get to that point Drowned was not built in a day and the provenance getting there is probably best reserved for folks curious enough to roll back in time and mull over contextual growth and ambitions. Taking their time to develop an inevitable full-length debut (‘Idola Specus‘, 2014) meant it’d arrived heavily stylized, memorable for its heavily atmospheric death/doom metal crawl which’d kicked things off and essential for the sake of the intense riffcraft, often drifting into its biggest statements by way of inspired use of tremolo-picked movements and quick-change rhythms summoned throughout. I was a huge fan of the album, going as far as to collect all editions and eventually setting it at #5 on my Best of 2014 commenting at the time: “This sort of death metal is completely up my alley (as evidenced by my love for bands like Krypts) and though I suppose there are easy comparisons to make [otherwise,] this band creates their own ominous atmosphere.“

Contemplation of death. — There were no expectations going into ‘Procul His‘, it hasn’t been hyped on social media with endless previews and though I think many folks perhaps fondly recall their debut LP you couldn’t have guessed or expected another record from the band -ever- since it has been roughly a decade beyond the release of ‘Idola Specus‘. The past is worth revisiting with some rapt attention as from what I’ve gathered some of these songs were partially formed or in the writing process as early as 2012 meaning they’d either not been ready for their debut or were finished after that process and in a very direct way this helps to intensify this feeling that I’d never left the realm of Drowned. Struck back down into the abyss and given a second chapter with comparable production values and signature guitar tones alight our point of entrance, “Star Tower”, helps to exacerbate this sensation of captive familiarity by cutting right into a new conversation at a kicking speed, avoiding the gloom-trodden death/doom that’d introduced the prior release and instead firmly hitting the ground running. This soon evolves into multiple tangents which showcase the quick-footed movement of the band still able to slur into surrealistic tangents, perhaps the most arresting moment being ~1:30 seconds into the song where the momentum built by the opening verse riffs changes course in an unexpectedly rousing sort of way.

The eerie gloom the band’ve been developing since the late 2000’s isn’t far off as the opener continues to develop but we find ourselves much deeper in the oil-wet oceanic drift of their work on “Phantom Stairs” thanks to bigger doomed wandering riffs and funereal synth-stringed groans from BetweenTheEyes, earning a quick and overwhelming sensation of immersion upon introduction. The swinging tension and sharper angled speedier sections of “Corpse God” remind us that there is a more punishing side to Drowned but never a lizard brained step taken, this song in particular reminded me of everything I’d loved about ‘Idola Specus‘ but at a faster clip and I’d suppose a higher riff-per-minute rate. In fact that’d been the first unexpected point of praise here, that not only does ‘Procul His’ once again T1 a master of the death metal riff in strong ‘old school’-birthed dynamic tension but that his compositional fortitudes have increased to support a busier hand at a more involved pace. Yes, we still find ‘Onward to Golgotha‘-lead traits as an important basal structure to some of that voicing but not such a dominant force as we find 80’s death metal and/or death-thrashing ruminations feeding into many of these pieces beyond the Eldritch creeping cavern-strewn creeping that features about thirty percent of the time. “Man in Devil In Man” more-or-less collects most of those traits and finds reasonable harmony between them but it is “Seed of Bones” which feels like the peaking fusion of all that is explored on ‘Procul His‘ in hindsight as the thrashing riffs, doomed breaks and stomping mid-paced roll of their work all form an intense result.

G.ST‘s vocals are more intelligible this time around per my own ear as I’d noticed I’d not only picked up far more of the lyrics at first pass than expected but I’d found his diction helped to clearly characterize “Malachite Mirror” and “Blue Moth Vault” with repeated phrases. This’d helped make each song distinct amidst the otherwise contiguous, easily flowing rush of the full listen. ‘Procul His‘ doesn’t merely gel together beautifully but it cycles in descending spiral, creating a variously floating and sinking sensation when left on repeat for hours; There wasn’t much to muse over in terms of visuals, the cover art seems to be photo manipulation from T1 wherein (willow?) sticks were arranged along the cracks of a large stone, this is well enough in line with simple textural album art on past releases and does an alright job of catching the eye. I’d have liked something that matches the broad strokes and finer details of each piece here but I can’t say the artwork is a sore point either.

Though I won’t argue for a perfect item exuded here as I preen over every aspect of this record but I’d taken no issue with the listening experience here, finding every second of ‘Procul His‘ substantive while admiring highly repeatable nature of the music itself. It shouldn’t come as a major surprise that a band with the fortitude to discover and re-discover themselves over the course of two decades before putting out their first full-length might manage a worthy, equally effective sophomore LP a decade later yet Drowned do offer up an admirably dumbfounding result herein, an extension and continuation of all they’d mustered prior. A very high recommendation.

---