Band der Woche KW 52/2019: Estatic Fear
Herkunft: Linz
Genre: Symphonic/Neoclassical Doom Metal
Kommentar der Redakion:
Estatic Fear appeared on the European metal scene in 1996, first with a little-known gothic/death metal demo track, and the following year with a full-fledged album “Somnium Obmutum”. Strongly inspired by Anathema, My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Cathedral, in their own music Estatic Fear further developed the neoclassical side of gothic and doom metal.
Not so many bands manage to produce something as unique and high-grade on their debut albums as the atmospheric multi-layered emotional grandeur of “Somnium Obmutum”‘s epics. But Estatic Fear’s music instantly started a small cult: though the Austrians’ music did not get much coverage and promotion, every gothic/doom metal fan who discovered it by chance would instantly and helplessly fall in love with it and spread it further among others.
The next concept album “A Sombre Dance” was released in 1999 and featured slightly lighter more folk/neoclassics inclined doom metal music. The second album was spread even farther and wider in this special niche, confirming Estatic Fear’s cult status.
Over the 20 years since then and especially after spread of the Internet in every corner of the world in 2000s, both albums were slowly but steadily conquering the ears and hearts of doom metal fans globally.
Now the band has devoted fans in a hundred world countries, including Syria, China, Vietnam, Dominicana, South Africa, Morocco, Kyrgyzstan, Egypt, Russia, Iran, Chile, Argentina, Israel, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, and so on, and the spell of Estatic Fear’s music doesn’t release its fans for decades, encouraging them to play Estatic Fear covers and create their own doom metal music.
Estatic Fear’s breathtaking academic refinement and doom/death metal emotional contrasts is an example of “parallel invention” in music; at the same time as Estatic Fear these components were independently combined into similar intricate concoctions by other special bands: Empyrium, Lacrimas Profundere, Haggard, Elegeion, Shroud of Bereavement, Forest of Shadows, Uaral, Forest Stream.
By 2019 Estatic Fear remains one of the brightest in the constellation of atmospheric neoclassical/folk gothic-doom metal jewels, and 2020 promises to bring a revival of this special genre.
~ Anton
Musikvorschlag:
Band der Woche, unter diesem Titel stellen wir euch jede Woche Dienstag Abend, 20 Uhr eine Band vor. Dies sind jeweils Bands, die von Mitgliedern unserer Redaktion empfohlen werden, vor allem junge Nachwuchsbands, die unserer Meinung nach mehr Aufmerksamkeit verdient haben.
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