US funeral doom/death metal veterans Evoken to reissue »Shades Of Night Descending« EP and »Embrace The Emptiness« on CD/LP via Hammerheart Records!
Lyndhurst, New Jersey based funeral doom/death metal veterans Evoken will reissue their debut EP »Shades Of Night Descending« and first full-length album »Embrace The Emptiness«, scheduled for release on January 16th, 2026 via Hammerheart Records. Both releases are remastered and come with original artwork.
Courtesy of Hammerheart Records:
Evoken’s funeral doom/death metal debut EP remastered and reissued! Raw, bleak and essential!
Doom metal, perhaps the most varied of all the metal genres, has been crossing over with plenty of other genres, and surprisingly often, the crossbreeding has been fertile. While the “funeral” brand of doom metal sounds like something that lacks the genetics to successfully breed with other metal genres, its nihilism works surpringly well when blended with slowed down death metal. Among the masters of that gruesome fusion are Evoken from the United States.
»Shades Of Night Descending« is the first recording by Evoken, released in 1994, and for a debut recording, it is a surprisingly mature creation. The later works of Evoken have a thicker wall of sound and plenty of production tricks in them, but the deviations from the basic formula introduced here have been essentially more polishing that actual rethinking of the format.
Perhaps the music is of the same funeral death/doom metal variety as found on the later albums, all the way to the excellent »Antithesis Of Light« and »A Caress Of The Void«, but the unrefined production on »Shades Of Night Descending«, with its barren character and almost heavy-handedly echoing soundscape, brings out the nihilism of funeral doom more effectively than the more professional production jobs of the later albums. The atmosphere on this recording is bleaker, even less forgiving, and perhaps even more desperate and repulsive in a positive sense than what can be found on »A Caress Of The Void«. Even the considerably melodic guitar part in »Towers Of Frozen Dusk« and other sweeter spots on the demo have a taste of ash and feel of pumice in them; Evoken walks on a musical lava field here, and manages to paint the true meaning of funeral doom in slow death metal colours on the canvas.
In comparison to their later works, this is perhaps the essence of the whole band in the original, pure form. Considering the year and the fact that this recording was recorded by a very recently formed band, the originality and the merciless exploration of new fields of abrasive nihilism are astounding. What’s more, the songwriting and technical performance sound exceptionally evolved. However, it was to take another four years before they managed to release »Embrace The Emptiness«, perhaps the world simply wasn’t ready for this yet at that point.
Trackist:
01. Intro
02. In Graven Image
03. Shades Of Night Descending
04. Towers Of Frozen Dusk
05. Into The Autumn Shade
06. The Hills Of Arctic Stillness (Demo 1996)*
07. Embrace The Emptines (Demo 1996)*
08. Outro (Demo 1996)*
09. Among The Whispering Spirits (Demo 1997)*
10. Outro (Demo 1997)*
* CD bonustracks
Pre-order »Shades Of Night Descending« CD/LP HERE.
The essential debut full-length from funeral doom/death legends Evoken remastered and available again! A majestic sight of everlasting reign!
Evoken are an essential funeral doom detal band. Give »Embrace The Emptiness« a listen and end up being immensely impressed…
First, there’s an intro track that portrays what can be found on the rest of the album: light sounding guitar played with the regular Funeral Doom followed by a section of quiet, dark ambient on the second half of the intro. You might be feeling two vibes here. It sounds mournful like most traditional funeral doom, but it also sounds deep and void-like like Esoteric’s take on the genre. One might think Evoken found the sweet spot between the two and made something great out of it.
Lead guitars exist and do break into solos at least once per song. Production wise, the guitars sound the rawest of all the instruments, but it’s barely noticeable when layered with the keyboards and drums which are well produced. The clean sounding soft guitar is one of the key players here and fits in well at any part of the album, be it melancholic pieces like »Tragedy Eternal« or more menacing ones like »Chime The Centuries End«, though there is much more of the latter than the former. The keyboards also do their part to augment the atmosphere with the presentation on »Chime The Centuries End« making one feel like staring downward into an abyss. It all feels so dark and empty, hence »Embrace The Emptiness«.
We feel like Evoken issued forth the modern wave of funeral doom with the cleaner sound. Though they were a little late bringing out their debut full-length in 1998 when Skepticism and Esoteric already belted out two albums each, Evoken’s »Embrace The Emptiness« is still very inspirational.
Put on »Embrace The Emptiness«, shade your windows, turn off the light, lie down in bed and let yourself get overwhelmed with emotions. Drift away in your mind and just let the feelings of solitude hit you. An utterly dark album that every fan of funeral doom/death metal should own.
Trackist:
01. Intro
02. Tragedy Eternal
03. Chime The Centuries’ End
04. Lost Kingdom Of Darkness
05. Ascend Into The Maelstrom
06. To Sleep Eternally
07. Curse The Sunrise
Pre-order »Embrace The Emptiness« CD/LP HERE.
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well