My first impression was, "What the f**k were these Norwegian guys thinking?" Then I remembered back to a trip I took in April, right before I got out of college. I met a cool Norwegian guy named Lars. He was attending the college I was visiting and was a badass of all sorts. We talked randomly about music and the internet, and I remember that he hit me with a strange tad-bit about music (well mainly metal). It was something along the lines of "It's not that you are American and you are stupid, but it's just that [metal] from Europe isn't so much about proving who is the bigger ass, but about just making music that isn't s***ty pop." And I was f**king blown away. Sure, it doesn't sound so cool, but you have to understand that this was coming from a severely conservative Norwegian and it was out of the damned blue. My story leads to my reasoning for liking Funeral a bit more. Why?

As I said, I was a bit confused on where Funeral was coming from with this album. I mean, everything is drone-y and the vocals are outright groans with the occasional annunciation. After a few listens, I got what it meant. Things were way more epic than I first had thought. Everything progresses further and further into this march-like calm where it all flows out right until the end.

Sadly this is every single song on the album. Although hypnotic and very much worth the listen, you can only be a drone for so long in life before you have the inkling to ask why, stop, and finally look at your surroundings and see what's right and what's wrong (yea, I just made a quasi-existential statement). Outside of the constant "doom" of the music, the lyrics seem to be strands of some book written by a political outcast or perhaps The Man without a Face.

Pros and cons weighed, I'll give this my Roman thumbs up, but barely. Although the music is well worth the listen, I bet there will be a time where I'll decide that this album is a pile of s*** and will destroy it (by taking it off my iPod) because it drags on for so damn long. Hooray for Norway , all for throwing a doom metal-leaning at me and making me like it! For now at least…

Track Listing:
1. This Barren Skin
2. From These Wounds
3. Architecture of Loss
4. Red Moon
5. Vagrant God
6. Pendulum
7. Saturn
8. Breathing Through You