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Hailing from the fertile Cleveland metal scene, FROM THE DEPTHS were very much a product of the mid '90s. Existing between 1994 and 2000, FROM THE DEPTHS featured ex-Blood of Christ guitarist Matt Sorg (also of HELLS HEADBANGERS stalwarts SHED THE SKIN) and fittingly played a form of metal that was somewhere between blackened death and deathened black, depending on the song. In 2016, HELLS HEADBANGERS reissued the band’s self-titled debut album from 1996 on vinyl, and now the label turns its attention to another long-overdue reissue of FROM THE DEPTHS’ catalog: the four-song Bereavement mini-album from 1997.
In many ways, Bereavement is an intensification of From the Depths. Here, FROM THE DEPTHS featured a retooled lineup - scene veteran Duane Morris (Decrepit, ex-EMBALMER, NUNSLAUGHTER, ex-Incantation et. al.) joined on bass, and Rob Molzan replaced one "Malcolm Judas Anthony" (AKA metal legend Jim Konya, RIP) on vocals - and the songwriting followed a similar schematic of crunch, twist, surge and stomp, all done with diabolical abandon but here with an even-more-epic flair. However, with the keyboards of Brian Boston taking a more prominent role, the guitars of Matt Sorg and Brian Bertam become both more blackened and more melodic, somehow finding a unique middle ground between the then-burgeoning melodic death metal movement and the contemporaneous Greek black metal scene. Thus, Bereavement emits an atmosphere both evil and otherworldly, but thankfully all buttressed by a very real METAL aspect. Arguably more so than its full-length predecessor, Bereavement is the kind of record that could've come out on the cult Unisound label. That alone should be recommendation enough for Those Who Know.
