RUNEMAGICK - Beyond the Cenotaph of Mankind
Hammerheart Records
RUNEMAGICK are not just a old death doom band from Sweden. They are a fucking institution. This band started out in the early 1990's and in 1998 finally came out with their amazing debut, The Supreme Force of Eternity. A year later they followed that up with another killer album, Enter the Realm of Death. Those two albums are fuckin classics in my not so humble opinion. 2000's Resurrection in Blood was also good but it would be their last album for Century Media Records.
No problem because the band kept going with still some good albums from 2002 to 2007. Seven albums in all in that time span and then it got quiet. That's probably when RUNEMAGICK became dead to fans outside of Sweden. I'm talking so dead that no one knew they put out an album in 2018 aptly titled Evoked from Abysmal Sleep. I did know about 2019's Into Desolate Realms and was not thrilled by it.
So here we are a few years later and RUNEMAGICK is now on Hammerheart Records which is a cool label that some how resurrects old bands. And this new one by the band is pretty damm good. RUNEMAGICK has this fresh and exciting sound on this their thirteenth full length. Fuck they open with an eleven plus minute opus titled "Archaic Magick" which drags you across jagged razors. I mean this whole album with just six cuts is a cross of being early stuff combined with their latter doom epicness.
Of course you've still got a band that's been together since 2000. Original member, guitar and vocalist Nicklas Rudolfsson has become like a bear out of hibernation sounding singer. His strained riffs ooze of horrific terror. Add to that you've still got the rhythm section of Emma Rudolfsson on thunderous bass and Daniel Moilanen on funeral marching drums. Plus former drummer and now guitarist Jonas Blom sets forth some timely chimes which push forth the eerie.
In the end this is the band's best album they've done in decades. To a point they still adhere to some early DM touches. But for the rest of the way it's a horrific atmosphere of hellish sounds which many modern bands learned from RUNEMAGICK's previous works. Right now these Swedes have come back to show the kids how it's really done. Beyond the Cenotaph of Mankind is easily one of my favorite releases of 2023.
LISTEN HERE:
https://runemagick.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-the-cenotaph-of-mankind-2
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