Desultory - Through Aching Aeons

Published June 23 2017

*=Staff's pick	Silent Rapture* Spineless Kingdom* Through Aching Aeons In This Embrace Beneath the Bleeding Sky Slither* Divine Blindness Breathing the Ashes Our Departure

Genre	Death Metal	Klas Morberg	Vocals
Tracks	9	Klas Morberg	Guitar
Running time	44 Min.	Håkan Morberg	Guitar
Label	Pulverized Records	Johan Bohlin	Bass
Release	June 23, 2017	Thomas Johnson	Drums
Country	Sweden	-	Keyboard
Producer	Tore Stjerna
Similar bands	Unanimated, Entombed, Dismember

When Entombed hit the worldwide underground big time with 'Left Hand Path', it opened the door for all the other bands in the Stockholm scene and inspired other youngsters to pick up instruments. Most of these acts would become nothing more than a curiosity at thentime, while other gained some remote success for a brief moment. Consequently, most would eventually disband.

Enter the late 2000's and a sudden renewed interest in the Stockholm sound amongst a new generation of death metal fans. This would in turn make the entire genre more popular than ever, give plenty of obscure acts from the 90's their recognition in retrospect and urge them to pick of the trail of the sins of their youth.

This general story quite follows the career of Desultory. Releasing two, in retrospect, praised albums in '93 and '94, the band then choose a poor musical direction, released a widely scorned album and disbanded. Making their comeback in 2009, Desultory quickly released a celebrated comeback album in 2010. As we have reached 2017 the bands fifth and swansong album is now about to hit the shelves.

In a sense, it is kind of a mystery why Desultory did not make a bigger impact back in the days. The band always had a quite unique sound balancing the murky Stockholm guitar sound with delicate melodic lines which bring Unanimated above all to mind. Today, this sound is fairly common, but was still in its infancy when Desultory started to make some noise.

On the other hand, Desultory has never really taken me completely aback with any of their albums, this one included. The recipe for success is pretty much there: heavy riffs and decisive drumming as the glue which holds the catchy melodic pieces together, finished by some well-pronounced growling to complete the job. Still, Desultory never really grab me by the balls and pull me down the way e.g. Unanimated or Dismember do. In short, Desultory never really composed songs of the same magnitude as the aforementioned acts, despite the talent present.

As Desultory have now decided to call it a day, there will surely be plenty of fans mourning the fold. 'Through Aching Aeons' is definitely a solid effort to sum up the bands career, no matter one's overall opinion on said career. Even though my life will go on unaffected by this move, I do have to give Desultory all the credit for ending their career before in goes completely south and preserving their musical legacy with honors.