Mourning Beloveth: Rust & Bone

Ireland’s veteran doom/death crew make an evolutionary leap

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Two years on from the release of their benchmark album Formless, Mourning Beloveth are pushing the envelope further still with the stunning Rust & Bone.

Its five tracks intended as one mammoth piece of music, this opus is the Irish doomlords’ most ambitious and diverse offering to date. Sombre and sinister, bleak and beautiful, a hand-built acoustic guitar weaves its way in and out of proceedings, adding extra textures to the Kildare quintet’s brooding threnodies, while lyrically they borrow from the works of Yeats and Beckett.

Bookended by tracks that will surprise some old-school fans, Godether is a drone and banshee wail-laden fusion of native laments, doom and black metal and also features their fastest recorded moment towards the end.

Yeats-referencing closer A Terrible Beauty Is Born is entirely unplugged and the stirring, Zeppelin-infused number is a future classic. File under ‘G’ for game-changer.