Band:	Hamferð
Album:	Támsins Likam
Style:	Doom metal
Release date:	January 2018

01. Fylgisflog
02. Stygd
03. Tvístevndur Meldur
04. Frosthvarv
05. Hon Syndrast
06. Vápn Í Anda

There is a funeral happening on a small island in the North Atlantic. Time to mourn.

Hamferð have been getting a bit more attention since their lead singer, Jón Aldará, also started lending his voice to Barren Earth, who are also set to release an album this year. Being a band from such a small country isolated on top of the world does give them a special aura as well, similar to Iceland, but amplified. The setting of the album's artists and the language in which it is sung only make the atmosphere much drearier and the grief deeper.

Too melodic to be a funeral doom album, too slow to be a melodic death-doom album, Hamferð sits right on the fence between the two, making the best out of both crushing grief and emotional melodies. While the range only ever switches from very slow to moderately slow, Hamferð know how to occasionally shift dynamics whether tempo-wise, instrumentation-wise or vocal style-wise. The fastest this album will get is the drum fills section near the end of "Tvístevndur Meldur" and the blasts in the album's climax in "Hon Syndrast".

The clean and pristine sound quality does everything it can to showcase how carefully every sound is placed. Whether it's the guitar's distortion or piano notes underneath Jón Aldará's voice, everything is polished and precise - which brings us to the album's strongest quality, the vocal performance of baritone Jón Aldará. Extremely versatile and emotive, even when singing in a language most of us do not understand, it can just as clearly transmit the feelings of dread, desolation, and bereavement that Támsins Likam's story is filled with.

So while written in a foreign language, Támsins Likam does manage to sound narrative through elements in its intro, climax and resolution, as well as its circular structure, ending on similar waters as the ones from which we started sailing. Also the album is moderately concise for an extreme doom, not only not reaching the one-hour mark, but being only around 45 minutes long, which does make it more impactful.

The dirge is ready to sail. Come and mourn.