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Considering its emergence approximately eighteen years ago, The Funeral Orchestra's body of recorded work is relatively sparse. However, rather than surrendering to the temptation to equate quantity with quality, this enigmatic entity has instead opted to release only work that it deems fully deserving of its creative endeavor. Cloaked in black robes and golden masks since 2002, The Funeral Orchestra released three demos prior to its 2003 debut album, Feeding the Abyss, which introduced its apocalyptic minimalist doom to a wider audience.
That same year, the band made its first live performance in its native Gothenburg, Sweden, though the local scene did not widely embrace its obscure doom atmosphere at the time. Since then, the band has released only a handful of splits, singles, and an EP, the latter containing two songs from a recording session that was intended to result in a second full-length album. This album never materialized due to dissatisfaction with the songs and sound captured during that period. Subsequent attempts to meet or surpass the quality of Feeding the Abyss proved elusive—until now.
In 2019, The Funeral Orchestra felt the correct timing and inspiration had aligned to produce a worthy successor to its debut and initiate a series of live performances. This new album, Negative Evocation Rites, was recorded in early 2020 at Studio Trauma and Abysmal Noise Studio in Sweden, with additional recording at an undisclosed location in Colorado. It is slated for release on Nuclear War Now! Productions later this year.
Fans of Feeding the Abyss will find that the band's approach remains faithful to its original formula. However, Negative Evocation Rites manages to conjure an even darker atmosphere, one that mirrors the bleak outlook for humanity in these uncertain times. The band's name is quite telling in this regard, as each of the four solemn hymns within serves as the perfect accompaniment to the funerary procession that seems to chaperone humanity toward its impending extinction.
In January 2020, The Funeral Orchestra returned to the stage for the first time in seventeen years at the Orgivm Satanicvm festival in Oslo, Norway. Additional performances were booked throughout the year for Never Surrender III (Germany), In Flammen (Germany), and UK Deathfest, with more to be announced. Thus, like the virulent disease it emulates, The Funeral Orchestra has arisen from dormancy to portend the end times as it spreads its contagion worldwide.
—C. Conrad
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