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Now this is the shit. I had heard good things about Tyranny's previous MCD, but this is my first taste of their Funeral Doom wizardry. Tides Of Awakening is their debut album, and I hope there are many, many more albums from this weird Finnish duo.

You think you've heard crushing? You think you've heard slow? You haven't heard shit. These guys are obviously very into Thergothon with their arcane Lovecraftian lyrics, their unwieldy song titles, and the oceanic crush of their heaviness. If Cthulhu listened to metal, this would be the stuff. The proper songs on here range from a short length of 11:42 all the way to the monster 17 minutes of track 3, and they are all huge, monstrous Doom-behemoths with vast, tidal-wave riffs and deep-sea vocals that sound like the Old One himself is at the mike. I expected this to be more mournful, like Fallen or Pantheist, but this band makes Pantheist sound upbeat they are so bleak and pitiless. There is a wonderful aura of creeping malevolence that pervades this album, and I love that this is far more inimical than despairing. Dirge Doom might be a better term, as this isn't the sound of a funeral – it's the sound of the earth being fucking destroyed in slow motion.

Uncompromising and extreme, to be sure, and those without a taste for excruciatingly slow and oppressive music are urged to approach Tides Of Awakening with great caution. But if you love Thergothon as much as these guys obviously do, then snap this puppy up, because you will love it.