There are many times when I sit down to listen to some classy, heavy doom that I find myself listening to something that just doesn’t come up to snuff with what so many other acts can bring to the table when it comes down to both quality and identity. A good album is always welcome, but when a band can do that and make it sound their own without being a rip off of what’s come before it is an achievement all on its own. While their latest work is not wholly original by any means, there’s no denying here that Towards Darkness hasn’t shaken things up at least a little bit.

Where things are really changed here, in particular, are with the vocals. They’re not the deep growls that can always go with a properly heavy take on doom since it’s a formula that will likely never get old and if you can do it even half well then you’re in for success in that department. What’s brought forth for “Tetrad” for vocals can be likened more to the likes of what can be heard from the world of hardcore, but, somehow, Towards Darkness makes it fit extremely well here as every track here is done justice by them and so much more. A lot of “Tetrad” could easily be placed within the niche corner of funeral doom, but that would be to undermine just how diverse this album is in its excellency and its execution. There isn’t a single song of this record that Towards Darkness dared to repeat anything from as we could be met with a harrowing tale in one track before being crushed into a meaningless cube of meat by the next, and everything done here pulls it off with no less than perfection! Every piece of “Tetrad” comes together far too well for this to be a one-off success for this band, and you can hear in each successive track that Towards Darkness are more than capable of delivering on every feasible level as the album goes on to show us the high quality and tantalizing flavors that are constantly brought forth for the entire runtime.

Towards Darkness constantly puts their best performance forward every second that they’re active here and it’s undeniable that their presence is any more than magnificent in every piece that we’re gifted with here. Nothing that was poured into “Tetrad” can be considered anything less than stupendous simply because everything that could’ve been done right here was done gloriously so, and there’s no telling me otherwise that Towards Darkness isn’t a band that demands a ton of future attention.

LISTEN to “Tetrad” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Towards Darkness on Facebook here.