3) Defacement - Doomed
I remember taking a sound design class on Coursera years ago on a whim. It was a fun exploration of the potential for compositions from the ground up, not necessarily using instruments but just how tones interact with each other, what harmonics are, what timbre is. I'm not often reminded of the class because most music composition involves the interplay between static instruments, it's orchestration, rather than ground up sound design.
Defacement's Doomed reminded me of this class because their approach to music is as if the instruments are secondary to a broader vision. These compositions are layered with space and noise and the way they recorded the instruments is wonderfully dynamic, sometimes cutting through the mix, sometimes buried behind a soundscape that suggests hypnosis in the listener.
Upon approaching this album I was seeing descriptors like dissonant blackened death metal, but I don't know if I would describe it this way. The album is called Doomed and in many ways it is a Doom metal album. It's a deeply sad and mournful journey. The dissonance on this record is used as a tool rather than a theme. So don't go in expecting Portal or Abyssal, go in expecting that they took influence from these giants of the genre and gave you an additional reason to feel emotionally invested in their music.
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