MANSION

First Death Of The Lutheran

I HATE Endtimes hymnals with their own, unearthly pleasures

Finland’s Mansion formed around the ideologies of their local Kartonoist Christian sect: a strict religious order active from 1920-1950 devoted to repentance, apocalyptic omens and living without earthly pleasures. Their debut album is a deeply unsettling blend of gothy psych slowed to a doomy black lava lamp-paced throb. Organs swirl, horns squawk and a haunting hurdy gurdy drones on to evoke a sense of total despair amidst fire and brimstone lyrics of sexual abstinence, endtime prophecy and child preachers. Wrapped in a black-clad churchy visual aesthetic, First Death…’s hymnals focus more on building up strains of atmospheric dread than using the driving tempos of the band’s previous work. With an extremely morbid rendition of Joy Division’s The Eternal, Mansion’s sound has evolved into a more ethereal and immersive goth rock dirge.

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FOR FANS OF. Jess And The Ancient Ones, Wovenhand, Sabbath Assembly

LIAM YATES