The quiet warning guitar at the beginning of the title track on their first full-length All Hail Corrosion can’t quite get you prepared for the subterranean heaviness to follow, as Portland, OH, Ephemeros splice their funeral doom with a significant dose of sludge, of darkest and weightiest kind. 40 minutes extended over three tracks, and you will feel you have been dragged through the mud. Where others project despair and depression while gravitating to funeral doom, Ephemeros also portray quite a bit of anger and emotional trauma. The title track, for example, is not very melodic, and even when guitar melodies do arrive around 4-5 min, they are detuned and cacophonous. The vocals by Joshua Greene range from bottom dwelling bellows to the ugliest vomitous shrieks, also giving in to anger just as much as pessimism and sense of loss. Listening to All Hail Corrosion I feel that this is the music coming not from a sighted person wallowing around in the mire, but instead the anger of a blind man knowing that he will be stuck in the darkness forever.

Not that one can expect much tempo variations in this genre, but in a certain sense Ephemeros do not have enough motion in terms of their riffs and emotion progression. They are always stuck feeling the same (Stillborn Workhorse). From that perspective, Soilbringer rises above the fray and checks most of the boxes I need from my funeral doom. Not that Soilbringer deviates from the utmost discipline the band displays on the album, the track still drums itself into oblivion, and the screams are just as desperate, but a melodic rolling thunder emerges around 5 min mark and somber funeral procession takes us into the outro around 8.5 min.

The latest Mournful Congregation is just as heavy, but Ephemeros can learn how to really come up with gut-spilling melodies and stretch the riffs from the Australians. Asunder is also sludgy, in a way, but have interesting instrumental influences (and cello) which provide for more variety than you will hear on All Hail Corrosion. The dedication to visceral heaviness, however, is Ephemeros trademark, so if instead of shedding a tear you want to harden up, All Hail Corrosion can serve as a soundtrack.