The interior deliberation of the grieving and/or questioning mind finds forgiving enough canvas within inherently existentialist sonic fusion as Nevada City/Sacramento, California-based atmospheric black/post-doom metal trio DESICCATION ruminate upon the legacy of those who have passed per the lushly reaching branches of this sophomore full-length album. Verdant yet funereal in its process ‘Legatum Mortuorum‘ explores what is left behind after death, siphoning the introverted process of reasoning through mortality out into the open as they gnash and float through bouts of aggression and beauteous realization. The result is a more capably stated fusion of inner thought and niche-specific moderne metal linguistics with the latter acting as translator for vexing, often clashing emotional detail divined in dramatic fashion.

Desiccation formed circa 2022 intending their own admixture of post-metal cinema given to extreme metal’s malleable sonic medium, namely exploring atmospheric black metal texture and pacing alongside equal parts extreme doom. Though the idea should send the mind veering toward an earlier Agalloch-derived paradigm on paper their debut full-length album (‘Cold Dead Earth‘, 2022) spoke more to something like blackened atmospheric sludge when observing the rhythmic bones of each piece. That first album lacked compelling structure for my taste but the fusion they were exploring within each vignette yielded surreal enough movement. For this second album the trio’ve managed a far more entertaining dynamic, a slightly more illustrative hand via an increasingly active but no less distanced voice.

‘Legatum Mortuorum‘ isn’t so immediately ambitious via opener “All Light is Gone” but the introduction of heated pace, a trotting folk-metallic first verse and some keyboard/synth-assisted transitions all signal a band who’re more capable and intentioned in gathering movement into scene. Achieving lucidity within said opener depends on sidling some of their outright doom/sludge metal riffing in favor of dark metal/depressive rock level despair and it is a fair enough trade per the reaches of Desiccation‘s general fusion. “Cursed in Cold Silence” both remedies and repeats this effect to some degree with its slow-stamped plodding main riff and rasping dictation eventually leading to similarly folken ‘epic’ trod; You’ll also note that from the first song each piece flows into the next, a seamless enough continuity which is enforced by sound collage and unique ambient movements which ebb between outro and intro for the general duration.

The novelty of Desiccation‘s approach thins for my taste around “The Alchemy of Grief” where their interest in symphonic black metal’s pomp and flounce is loudest yet neither narrative nor melody introduced fully launch beyond the piece’s droning hex. That said the layering available to each of the mid-album song’s (incl. title track “Legatum Mortuorum“) vocal performances, rhythm guitar channels and strong bass guitar led swerves all speak to the richly humming production values available to ‘Legatum Mortuorum‘. The growl of the bass, the sparkling keys abundance, and the crossing of several very different vocals layers again speaks more to atmospheric sludge’s evolution in my mind but offers something unique enough to the atmoblack/post-black space.

In terms of a self-description or statement of intent lining up with action I’d found the grand finale, via the ~11 minute album closer “Lamentations Beyond the Veil”, offered the most palpably realized interpretation of (funeral) death/doom inspired musing on ‘Legatum Mortuorum‘, particularly in its first few minutes. With that said it won’t likely be enough of a riff-forward event to convince folks looking for pure death metal in any sense. The columnar chunking through the final song’s main rhythms is yet a tool to convey peaking dread/realization, a drag through final moments which serve to punctuate the full listen’s impact ’til floaty, storm-bound ambiance drains to silence.

Due to their outlined landscape being relatively vast and without any clear signature defined just yet I’m not sure Desiccation are done experimenting with their core idea on this second album, merely refining it into glowing interest. The band’s taste appears to default to a love for musical cinema, far-sighted viewgazing rather than rhythmic minutiae but they’ve nonetheless made far more dynamic and detailed work beyond the last. When looking past a few moments of blustering spectacle, uniquely textured movement and a general stylistic mash-up which comes with reasonable precedence ‘Legatum Mortuorum‘ is almost more interesting per the possibilities introduced than it is as an exploration of extreme metal movement. That is to say that the maximal qualities of their influences become a wall of golden din in practice rather than a mournful collapse, leading to an at-times confused tonal intersection which is yet ambitiously crafted. That’d be the main takeaway from my point of view, that these folks’ve made leaps in enriching their sound, concept and vernacular but haven’t quite pierced the veil with a level of connectivity worthy of their ambitions. A moderately high recommendation.

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