Funeral doom metal is a subgenre that, when executed properly, is fertile ground for stimulating the listener’s imagination. Perhaps this is because the glacial pace offers ample room for the mind to wander. Perhaps it’s because the music focuses more on deliberate mood than mindblowing technicality. With the right album artwork to gaze at, the experience is particularly immersive.¹ While the music that Gloombound plays may be sonically closer to death-doom, it is composed with the same painstaking attention to detail as the best funeral doom. And the fact that Dreaming Delusion is the debut record of this young group from Oslo, Norway, makes this even more impressive.

We tend to use the word cavernous a lot when describing death-doom, but the very compositions of Dreaming Delusion evoke an actual cave. This is particularly true of the guitarwork. Solitary notes and arpeggios trickle like drips of water from stalactites (“An Eternity of Complete Acquiescence”). The jagged death-doom surfaces melt into melodies that are smooth as the glassy surface of a subterranean lake (“Luminary Dissolution”). The lush yet explosive guitar solo midway through “Dreaming Delusion” hits like a sudden burst of sunlight after a rockfall, reminiscent of the fretwork in Worm’s Foreverglade. The sum total could very well be a sibling of Dream Unending’s dreamy despondency.

Yet, unlike Dream Unending, Gloombound seeks to crush the listener’s spirits just as much as their eardrums. Dreaming Delusion tantalizingly oscillates between despair and hope. The two vocalists, Mina Halvorsen and Emma Theneus Sønstebø, form a twisted, echoing call and response before the music slips into a psychedelic pool of keys and fretless bass (“At the Precipice to Longinquity”). These quieter, contemplative moments are crucial beyond merely adding beauty. Far from a meaningless acoustic guitar interlude, “Salvation” is instead a welcome respite from the psychic assault, for which the listener is punished more intensely by the rattling riffs and growls of “Luminary Dissolution.” Over the course of 44 minutes, the hope for escape gradually drowns, giving way to anguish and finally blossoming into serene acceptance during the final notes of concluding track “Dreaming Delusion.”

Dreaming Delusion is as psychological as it is emotive. It truly feels like the mental unraveling of a soul trapped in a metaphorical cave. Every element of the instrumentation, from the guitar structure to the haunting organs to the fretless bass, combine to create a rich sound that is somehow both full and cavernous. The vocals are both oppressive and harrowing, with lots of variation and expressiveness. I’m impressed by how mature Gloombound sounds in both songwriting and performance on their first attempt. What do you do when your mind betrays you? Dreaming Delusion offers no answers, only catharsis.

Tracks to Check Out: “An Eternity of Complete Acquiescence,” “Dreaming Delusion”

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