Treurwilg – Departure (Album review)
Release date: 31-10-2016
Written by Dirk Kremers | Dutch Brutal / Death / Metal / Thrash
Treurwilg has released ‘Departure’ last year. With this debut record, Treurwilg has proven itself immediately. On ‘Departure’ you can hear powerful, deep and crushing doom music. Bands that have inspired Treurwilg aren’t the smaller doom metal bands around. Bands like Amenra, Ahab, Swallow the Sun and Katatonia are major influences to Treurwilg. With these influences, Treurwilg has a lot of inspiration to go their own way with it. And so, they did. On ‘Departure’ there are 5 songs: The Inflammation Of Our Blood, Labyrinth, As His Final Light Is Fading, The Vacant Void and the album title-track Departure. It is an album where you can get your mind getting dragged away. The sounds and vocals of Treurwilg drag you into a dark world. Before Treurwilg released ‘Departure’ they released a live-ep which you can download for free at their Bandcamp page. On this live-ep you can find several songs of ‘Departure’ and older songs in their arsenal. The songs have been written by the band themselves. By looking at previous demo songs, Treurwilg has improved a lot. They sound like they’ve gotten more experienced in their music. I think that is because Treurwilg has been doing shows around the country in 2016. It gives them more confidence to see that different crowds like what they are playing/producing. After several listens to this album, I can say is that I really want to hear more and more by Treurwilg. After seeing themselves play at a gig I was attending, it has increased the urge to see and hear more after the debut full length ‘Departure’. You can say that this is a great release from Dutch soil and if you are a fan of Doom metal bands like named above, you will absolutely like the style of Doom metal that Treurwilg plays.
The end verdict (if I need to put it into numbers) is a solid 8 of out 10.
Tracklist:
1. The Flammation Of Our Blood
2. Labyrinth
3. As His Final Light is Fading
4. The Vacant Void
5. Departure
Recorded at: Double Noise Studios
Mixed and gemasterd by Gerben van der Aa
Artwork and layout by: Vera Kuijpers
Lyrics by: Treurwilg
Label: Unsigned / (bandcamp)