FVNERALS – The Light

Fvnerals, the british trio from Brighton released their debut album The Light, on December 1st (’14). No better way to end this year than listening to some darkwave doom in the cold and the dark.

The Light is an eight-track 39 minute sound experience which embalms you with a strange but haunting atmosphere and invites you to a slow and perilous walk through the twists and turns of your disturbed mind. Here’s the itinerary:

1. Oath
2. Vakna
3. Aryd
4. Shine
5. Tiga
6. Closer
7. The Light (Part I)
8. The Light (Part II)

« The Hours » drew the dark path,
« The Light » lit it.

In the beginning of 2013, Syd (guitar) and Antoine (drums) met Tiffany (vocals/synth) in the south coast town of Brighton. The band recorded and released their first Ep “The Hours” in February via their label Eerie Echoes and started gigging in May the same year.
After spending time on their side project, the band members decided to work on new songs and record this debut album during the summer of 2014.

OATH opens the ball and sets the tone. It is cold, the notes reverberate, hammering the bell of a mass heralding the ill omen. It stops the time, it summons you, there’s the doom!

It reminds me some good old Evoken with that « clean » sound and bright tone treated with a lot of delay and reverb effects, drawing a wide, cold and moist landscape as if we were in hell ; the version with the rivers, the coldness, the darkness and where the scenery sweats the putrefaction.

Because of the inherent complexity of the genre and because it is a kind of music that you (most of the time) listen alone and in a particular mood, « The Light » requires multiple listenings.
Overall, the riffs are slow, the notes minor and low-tuned, therefore, the places you are exploring are very misty and risky but the singer Tiffany holds our hand, drags us to follow them further on the path. She’s the warm candle light that guides you on the track by enlightening those uncertain places.
Her voice is sumptuous, deep, warm and very mastered. A breathy-voice like Cat Power at the time of « What Would The Community Think » and « Moon Pix » that haunts you, establishing the mood… definitely my type of voice.

After all we’re in the warm in that wide landscape painted by the constant dark coloration of the riffs.

How dark the light is!

The drum, in the last track « The light (ii) », calls the shots ; there is something more conventional but never binary/pillow-like simple…never easy, that’s why I like it.

The album is made with a quite minimalist and even stripped music contrasting with some « explosive » sections and the main theme becomes even more effective as it is treated with such tension and intensity.

_ _ _

The Light is available via Throne Records and Eerie Echoes Records and you can listen to it on their Bandcamp.

The perfect album to keep you company this winter and be in tune with the death of the nature, specific to this season.
… and the name of the band is FVNERALS, how could not like it?!

† Corbal.