Ego Depths - Equilibrium Sickness

01:01 of dumb clouds, possessed dolls and purely hypnotic universe. Maybe it's just because I had relatively low expectations for Equilibrium Sickness, but it has managed to surprise me in more than one way. With its schizophrenic Funeral Doom, Ego Depths prone to executing such heavy handed juxtapositions that all value becomes lost. 
It is pretty difficult to explain the atmosphere more than that: Behind these five tracks, your mind fades into the image of a possessed doll singing inside an empty and forgotten house; a sweet shadow, nothing more than a strange silhouette. Her liturgies echo from room to room, vibrating towards the naked arch of a small window where you can imagine your body on top of a barren cliff, contemplating your silent soul. Suddenly, her songs spray a curse on your face, the vibrations of her reverbs reaching your feet through the mass of shadows until it finally evaporates. 
Those of you that were tortured by Esoteric, Evoken and specially Funeral Mourning, rejoice!! For ED bring back those great moment when the best aspects of the genre were exploited. Whether this makes any sense before you've heard this album I do not know, but it should be hard to find someone who would hear it and not be affected in some way. I am especially pleased by the way Stigmatheist has successfully incorporated some more heavy and aggressive influences into the mournful sound, resulting in some excellent contrast with a smell of rebellious sections. Each part is well orchestrated: The mystifying growls, the slow-paced disharmonic, the ambient passages and that ever-present feeling of despair at each coil and turn of the empty. The guitar-driven doom sound is as powerful as it needs to be, with the ever important drum sound having been nailed quite well. Some parts send me to Quietus or the monumental masterpiece of Funeral Mourning "Drown in Solitude". It's true that some arrangements become slightly repetitive and less relevant but certain monotonous areas care a must for Funeral Doom and cannot be seen as a negative. 
The last chapter is a cover taken from Turn Loose the Swans of My Dying Bride. The emotions displayed are analogous, and a bit of dissonant sound do also the trick in expanding the musical possibilities of the band. It is almost entirely MDB but Stigmatheist knows perfectly when to pull the emergency brake and personal talents on its hatful train. 
At length, the main positive point is that the album sounds all the time like a well-constructed piece, and not like a collection of songs. This is an awesome debut record which is highly recommended not only to fans of Primitive Funeral Doom but also those who are unable to exist without repression…A great deal of hidden torture and mutilation to be found in this lonely doll if one knows how to look.