Published: November 2014

Nethermost is a very young outfit from Texas that plays Melodic Doom Metal, which is not unlike what, let’s say, Paradise Lost played in their earlier career. This EP is a debut effort, which offers four rather typical melodic and slightly depressively sounding tunes. All songs sound very much alike, constructed using mostly the same formula of composition. The music is very straightforward and pretty monotonous dominated only by two types of rhythmic patterns. One being a default slow Doom-like beat, another one a Rock-like upbeat. Those switch between each other in songs all the time. Both rhythm and lead guitars have strictly defined roles within a context of every song. They have little to no dynamics in their playing at all, never really changing their character. The same thing applies to vocals as well. Just a typical Death/Doom growl that does not budge from its position.

Overall, “Alpha” is downright simple and doesn’t hold many surprises except one tasty short atmospheric insert on the first song “Phasing Currents”. But despite being rather primitive, this material appears completely undemanding and easily listenable, given you are open to this style of Metal and don’t mind it as a somewhat decent background.