LOSS „Life Without Hope…Death Without Reason”

“Life Without Hope…Death Without Reason” is an excruciatingly painful realization. Once a thought like this gets into an unstable person’s head, tremendous consequences will follow. When this phrase leaves a human’s lips, an intervention is necessary. Tennessee’s LOSS duplicates the awful feeling that comes with a phrase like the album’s title. The group takes the speed of doom metal, the vocals of guttural death metal and covers its music in thick layers of coarse distortion. The distortion makes funeral home rhythms weigh much heavier, considering the emotional loftiness already set into place. Each riff rises and falls like heat flashes that come and go in waves. The notes that Mike Meacham and Tim Lewis play start high and gradually move to the low end of the fret, like the gradual loss of one’s mind.

The above, written descriptions mostly pertain to the second and third tracks on the album “Conceptual Funeralism Unto the Final Act (of Being) and “Cut-up, Depressed and Alone.” Those two tracks are the only studio tracks. The first track is nothing but an intro of ear piercing noise. The last two tracks are live tracks not included on the album’s original release in 2004. Loss did well when they reissued this one with the live tracks because these tracks add much to the album. The first live track is a melancholy classic, the KATATONIA cover, “Brave” taken from KATATONIA’s heaviest album “Brave Murder Day,” the only album to feature OPETH’s Mikael Akerfedlt on vocals. Emulating the vocals of Akerfeldt is a tough task, so LOSS brought KRIEG’s singer Imperial up on stage to give it a shot. Imperial could not quite pull off as powerful a performance as Akerfeldt (who can?), but his screams echo with much torment. LOSS played the song true to its original, gray form.

The next live track, “The Barebacked Burial of a Torn Angel” shows LOSS taking a step away from the doom to embrace death metal, blast beats and all. The entire album has an early MY DYING BRIDE feel. Nowhere is this more evident than on this final track, which recalls MY DYING BRIDE’s thundering death metal classic “The Forever People.”

“Life Without Hope” contains dangerously depressive music. The group has a knack for creating haunting, despondent rhythms, and piles on their feedback like a farmer spreading manure, which instills an even graver tone to their music. What keeps LOSS from elevating themselves to the stature of a MY DYING BRIDE is the vocals. One cannot fully feel what the group is trying to express without an understanding of the lyrics. Meachum’s vocals are guttural and unintelligible. His vocals are reminiscent of Funeral Doom pioneers DISEMBOWLMENT. The music is so beautifully dark, this type of vocalization seems out of place. There is no need for the group to pussy out and get goth vocals, but there also isn’t a reason that their listeners can’t understand a word they are saying. The inclusion of more discernable death vocals the next time around should make this group even more appealing to the sun-fearing meloncholiacs everywhere.

note: 6/10

Tracklist

Coffin Nails (intromancy)
Conceptual Funeralism Unto the Final Act (of Being)
Cut-up, Depressed and Alone
Brave (Katatonia Cover)
The Barebacked Burial of a Torn Angel

Line-up

Mike Meacham – Guitar, Vocals
John Anderson – Bass
Tim Lewis – Guitar
Jay LeMaire – Drums