Sometimes an album of undespicable allure falls into my mailbox. Unannounced and equipped with a biography hardly worth mentioning. I knew nothing of Mar De Grises. Never heard of them, and if our lovely chief editor wouldn’t have send the album to me, it probably would have stayed like that. But it didn’t.

I am not much of a doom fan but The Tatterdemalion Express (TTE) reached out to me like Judgement of Anathema (not realy a doom album, but hey) did a few years ago. There’s elements in their sound that speak to me. The drama, the sorrowful melodies, the sheer deprivation that color the vocals, the layers, the x-factor. This progressive doom band from Chile (of all places) bring to us songs like the grooving epic mid tempo charger “To See Saturn Fall”, the weeping “El Otro” and five more devastating tracks.

Each song takes all the time it needs to put all the pieces in just the right place. The multi-layered production does the rest.

A track like “To See Saturn Fall” is so crammed with riffs and ideas, it sounds like ten songs in a row, with numerous silences, breaks, samples, up tempo parts, keyboard and piano intervals, it’s just too much to mention. The one element that might get you down on your knees are Marcelo Rodriquez’s vocals. At times he really sounds like the wind. Kinda hard to explain. More variation there would have made TTE truly stunning.

Listening to TTE almost makes me feel sorry winter is ending. And that means something, cause I fucking hate winter. Doom fans, weepers and depressed rock fans know what to do. Checkout www.firebox.fi for more info.