Aphonic Threnody Premiere Majestic & Mournful New Death/ Doom Single — Listen Here!

The duo Aphonic Threnody will be releasing their latest death/ doom opus, called The Great Hatred, on Oct. 16 via Transcending Obscurity Records. Below, get an exclusive first listen to the title track.

The band’s music feels majestic yet mournful, as if surveying some kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland. The melodies feel crisp and poignant, but the band present them with expansive, somber performances that reveal a current of chest-clutching tension. “The Great Hatred” never gets physically overwhelming. Instead, via the group’s relatively unbroken, unpunctuated performances, the track focuses on a deeply resonating despair, like feeling like there’s no way out. The pain goes on and expands — there’s a huge energy in the billowing melodies across this track, but the song simultaneously wavers with heaves of turmoil, as if the world itself has somehow begun to weep. The solemn grandiosity feels inescapably powerful — not triumphant, but movingly powerful nonetheless.

“The Great Hatred” begins with a slow piano intro before moving into mournful yet heavy guitar strums and a steady but comparatively restrained drum rhythm, with a deeply resonating bassline. At the track’s two minute mark and beyond, the guitar dynamics increase, with a decidedly majestic and somewhat skyscraping but still inescapably cloudy drama, and the group repeatedly returns to a baseline of simmering turmoil that totally envelops sharper moments, like a brief foray into more energetic riffing around the four and a half minute mark. The track’s vocals smoothly alternate between roars and soulful, spoken word-oriented passages.

There are hints of beauty here, but that’s definitely not the song’s overwhelming imprint. The song feels more focused on a journey of metaphysical release. Here, shuddering heaviness feels sorrowful.

Aphonic Threnody features members of Towards Atlantis Lights, Dea Marica, Arrant Saudade, and more, and their latest record’s cover artwork is the creation of Misanthropic Art (who’s handled other work including pieces for Xpus and Death Courier).

Order at this link for the U.S. and this link for Europe.

Check out “The Great Hatred” below!