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Aftermath Music puts out about all the good Doom, so the arrival of a new disc from this label is always a good thing. The Fall Of Every Season is a one-man melancholic Doom band from Norway, the land of sunshine and happiness. When I first spun this it didn't really grab me, but repeated listens have seen it really grow on me.

This is very melancholic and depressive Doom. That may sound weird, since Doom Metal is supposed to be depressing, but a lot of bands are more odd and dark than really gloomy. This album is really, really, really depressing to listen to. Not moody and pensive like Agalloch, and not aggressive and creepy like Novembers Doom, no no no. This is music by the clinically depressed for the even more clinically depressed. Slow, epic, melodic and bleak as a moonscape on Tuesday. Marius Strand proves himself a master of hollow, haunting melodies and crushing heaviness. The vocals are a mixture of clean and growled sounds, and the clean vocals are so good I wish he'd ditch the growls altogether. The guitar playing on this album is really good – not just slow but soulful, and he shows he's a player who can handle acoustic passages without falling back on scale-built cliché's.

I find this almost too sadness-filled to listen to very often, and that's the mark of the album's success. If you want music that is Doom in fact as well as in name, music so depressive it's almost hard to listen to, then you want this album. Another fine release from Haavard and Aftermath.