apanthropy

Gloombound
Dreaming Delusion
Gruesome Records
Release Date: 11/21/2025

Rating: 88/100

“What Gloombound create on their debut full-length album, Dreaming Delusion, is spirit-drowning funeral doom that captivates. Layers of sound moving in conjunction, creating a veritable wall of crushing power, slow and slamming, like how the sea crashes against the cliffside. Dirge drones summon funeral atmosphere, accompanied by a myriad of complementary aural shades in the form of roaring church organ or somber piano, adding a stark, hypnotic element the entirety of the soundscape.“

–
1 – At the Precipice to Longinquity
2 – An Eternity of Complete Acquiescence
3 – Salvation
4 – Luminary Dissolution
5 – Dreaming Delusion
–

Funeral doom treads an interesting path in 2025. It represents the ostensible end of the extreme sonic spectrum. Where others are fixated on screaming tempos, or immense technical execution, its opposite must exist, and it exists within this sub-genre. Where the tempos grind to glacial paces, furious crashes of chords and deep percussion lurch the tracks forward, atmospheric, immersive, crushing.

It appeals to a certain listener. The lengthy tracks, the slower tempos, and the crushing progressions, it’s nothing that is geared towards the majority consumer. The majority consumer isn’t going to sit down and listen to an hour-long record. At best, they might listen to it half-heartedly as some form of mental background noise. It simply isn’t for everybody. But that’s the great thing about funeral doom, when it is done well and executed in a worthy manner, it becomes a captivating form of desperate expression, a deep stare into the void of human existence, it stops being about a measure of minutes and becomes a time-bending piece of art.

What Gloombound create on their debut full-length album, Dreaming Delusion, is spirit-drowning funeral doom that captivates. Layers of sound moving in conjunction, creating a veritable wall of crushing power, slow and slamming, like how the sea crashes against the cliffside. Dirge drones summon funeral atmosphere, accompanied by a myriad of complementary aural shades in the form of roaring church organ or somber piano, adding a stark, hypnotic element the entirety of the soundscape. There are also strong elements of death metal that manifest at times, resulting in surprising changes of tempo and intensity, elevating this to something beyond just a conventional genre-safe record.

Founded in Oslo, Norway in 2022, Gloombound issued their debut demo, Astral Exhalation, in 2023 as an independent digital release. These three tracks were the original blueprint that was later greatly sharpened, refined, and meticulously executed on Dreaming Delusion, which is seeing a second come around thanks to Gruesome Records bringing it to the physical realm in the form of a CD pressing, due out November 21st. Dreaming Delusion was originally released on July 25th, 2025, once again, as an independent digital release. The new CD version also includes the Astral Exhalation demo as bonus tracks, bringing the total amount of musical content to an hour across eight tracks.

‘At the Precipice to Longinquity’ opens the record in a manner that is unmistakably funeral doom. A crashing roaring chord that sustains across numerous beats rings out, flanked by a simple four note melody, all dancing within the same octave. Church organ drones like Skepticism, the melody expands into multiple ringing notes, roaring gutturals and trade-off vocals enter. Eirik Haukaas’ keyboard and synth work adds immense depth and immersion. A cleaner section toward the middle of the song showcases a band that can write expressive, expansive music that possesses an engaging personality that isn’t always thunderingly heavy. The guitar combo of Nate Gundersen and Håkon Leira is a traditional pairing of rhythm with lead, at times, oppressively heavy, at others, ethereal and otherworldly.

‘An Eternity of Complete Acquiescence’ merges the crushing atmosphere of funeral doom with traditional death metal in a display that is surprising to hear the first time around. One is expecting a track that follows suite in the same manner as the opener, but a short time into the track, it shifts into high-tempo death metal, replete with grinding tremolo, dense double-stacked vocals, and blast beats. The abrupt shift in tempo is an immense contrast and a burgeoning sensation of wild, unresolved tension. The song eventually scales down to a milder tempo again and explores cleaner, more ambient phrasing, but never abandons the true oppressive atmosphere and execution.

A short interlude, ‘Salvation,’ feeds into ‘Luminary Dissolution,’ another slab of crushing funeral doom death that hits higher tempos in the earliest segments, focusing on a rhythmic attack that sounds colossal on larger stereo systems. This is arguably the most straightforward and fluid track on Dreaming Delusion.

The title track closes the record, a monstrous 15-minute display of uncompromising misery, bleakness, and despair. Undistorted guitars, bass, and organ merge into something otherworldly and funereal early on. Clean vocals trade with crushing gutturals. The song’s nature is beautifully expansive, with each member getting opportunities to display their contributions to the whole. The lead work that manifests halfway through the track is superb, its relationship with the rhythm guitar and its sonic balance and fluidity is masterfully executed. The rhythm section, comprised of vocalist and bass player Emma Sønstebø with vocalist and drummer Mina Halvorsen, is locked in for the full duration of the song. Bass lines, characterized by lush tone, dance underneath the crashing chords, and the percussion explores a number of different tempos, from the slow dying heartbeat of simple bass and snare combinations to up-tempo double-bass. The song itself is a grand display of songwriting prowess and the end sum of the obsidian-colored abysmal grief that played out over the previous 45 minutes.

There are three bonus tracks on the CD version, consisting of the band’s first demo, Astral Exhalation, giving the listener a glimpse of the early blueprint that went into creating Dreaming Delusion.

The production on Dreaming Delusion is nearly flawless. The rhythm guitar and its massively sustained chord strikes feel like they ring out for eternity without losing a single decibel of audio power. Leads and cleaner guitar work is crisp and acute. Keyboards and organs blare with pomp and confidence, coexisting in the sound mix where sometimes it leads and other times it compliments. Percussion provides great tonal presence in the low end, with softer tom tones, a brighter snare, crisp cymbal work, and a punchy bass drum. Bass guitar is higher in the mix than what one would normally expect, it has a prominent presence and excellent positioning in the mix, adding such a depth of character to the rhythm of the band. Trade-off vocals range from clean to deeply guttural, a little low in the mix at times, but nonetheless powerful and uncompromising.

Overall, this is an excellent first effort for a newer band, proving that funeral doom is still a very effective genre in 2025. At an hour’s length, one can disappear into a trance while listening, the individual songs are each voices of desperation and existential grief, brought into animation through pulverizing oppressive doom. Fans of the genre will have another solid contribution to an already powerful year of extreme records. Fans of funeral doom, doom death, the likes of Skepticism, Disembowelment, and Colosseum, give it a spin.

Label: Gruesome Records
Band: Gloombound

AJK