Everyone is on a personal journey for which we don’t know an end date nor do we know the trials and tribulations we’ll face along the way. For me, the last handful of years have been tumultuous and wrought with sadness and loss, life events that I long dreaded that happened all in a very short time frame. Yet, out of that, there are positives, and they are milestones once must face once tackling existence.

“Requiem for Eirênê” is the third record from funeral doom-based Isenordal, and the album tells of a similar journey they detail over five tracks and 55 minutes of power. The band—vocalist/guitarist Kerry Hall, viola player/vocalist Eva Vonne, guitarist Gordon Greenwood, keyboardist/vocalist Lieu Wolfe, bassist/cellist/flautist/string player Jeff King, drummer/vocalist Brian Spenser—truly spreads their collective wings on this record, creating an excursion through love, loss, grief, surrender, and finally a spiritual climax that is told through some of Isenordal’s heaviest moments yet and also some of their most delicate. It took me several sojourns with this music just to get to the point where I feel I can write about it, and I’m sure it’ll take many more for the push to be complete. I also connected emotionally just from having experienced some of what the band details here, and it’s been sort of a catharsis for me that continues to this second.

“A Moment Approached Eternity” is the 15:08-long opener, the lengthiest track here that basks in organs and sorrow, the howls landing as all the voices mix together, storming with multiple personalities telling the tale. The playing turns dramatic and driving, slipping into the cold, the whispers haunting and the strings carving pathways, stinging and chilling. The pace picks up again, and shrieks storm, the strings whipping up momentum, and the keys glazing as guttural force takes over. Wolfe and Vonne’s voices coat with freezing intensity, the guitars catch fire, and everything ends in ash. “Await Me, Ultima Thule” opens with rousing group singing and playing that makes your blood rush. “Carry me away,” they urge, the emotional force picking up the momentum, the shrieks crunching bones, icy melodies causing your flesh to quiver and ache. “You must find your way by starlight,” Wolfe calls as the playing storms heavily, and viciousness suddenly dawns. The playing blisters, the shrieks cave in skulls, and everything comes to a spellbinding end.

The title track is an instrumental piece that acts as a logical center point to the record, piano drips, delicate singing thaws, and everything flows gently and solemnly, the strings amplifying the ache, the keys flowing into “Epiphanies of Abhorrence and Futility.” Organs bubble to the surface, and then growls strike, the strings weaving thick stripes of doom into the mix. The screaming and singing mix as the playing batters slowly, and the strings glisten, the fire churning in everyone’s bellies. Singing pushes as the doom power drops and infects, the howls crush, and sonic violence comes and takes you down. Drama cascades as the singing chills, ending in a cataclysmic cloud. Closer “Saturnine Apotheosis” brings charring guitars, and it makes your foundation rattle, everyone singing and rousing your energies. Strings cloud as the melodies grow properly dreary, the drama thickens, and the fog grows to be insurmountable, the growls crumbling as the singing glows. Strings rivet until the ground quakes, the playing rushes forward, and the singing fills your chest with emotion. The guitars and strings glow, and the final words and melodies thicken before fading into the wind.

Insenordal’s power is growing before our eyes and ears, and “Requiem for Eirênê” demonstrates both their musical prowess and their creative fires grow dramatically. This record truly is a spiritual journey, as they note themselves, and every emotion and high and low one experiences along the way bursts from the seams, making this record feel utterly and perfectly human. This is a ferocious journey, one that demands repeat listens in order to absorb everything going on with this record and all of the messages this gifted band conveys here. Every trip back opens new doors and tributaries that rush to your senses and fill them with wonder.

For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/isenordal.metal

To buy the album, go here: https://us.spkr.media/us/Artists/Isenordal/

For more on the label, go here: https://en.prophecy.de/