Process of Guilt have long shone quietly but brightly, a hidden gem buried beneath layers and layers of their more ostentatious or geographically blessed peers. Dearly beloved within their native land and largely unknown beyond its borders, Portugal's finest purveyors of textured, atmospheric doom have returned with their third full-length. Fæmin is their first proper album since 2009's excellent Erosion, and comes courtesy of a partnership between Portugal's Bleak Recordings and Swiss label Division Records. Though they've come out with eight releases over their decade of existence and formed during the height of the post-metal Cult of Neur-Isis boom, the band have yet to truly surface on the global metal scene's radar-- until now. Fæmin is poised to be their breakout album and, as such, has a lot riding on its 40-some minutes. Five songs populate the record (with "Harvest"'s six-and-a-half minutes clocking in as the shortest effort), and flow together nearly seamlessly, giving Fæmin an aura of continuity that suits its largely mid-tempo, repetitive riffage.
Process of Guilt fall reluctantly into the "post-metal" camp, but are far too rough-edged and industrialized to get lost amongst the reverb pedals and Aaron Turner clones languishing therein. Their sound is a heady mixture of Godflesh and Neurosis at their most pointed; the songs are long but focused. The atmosphere stays dark, and oppressive, and punishing. Think slices of Godflesh's Streetcleaner filtered through an army of effects pedals, or Brooklyn mechanized doom collective Batillus covering Neurosis' "Through Silver and Blood". Post-metal as an entity always seemed a bit mechanical, what with its emphasis on effects and loops and feedback drones; Process of Guilt ramp up that inhuman influence with cyclical heaviness, a forceful mid-tempo stomp verging upon industrial. A pronounced hardcore influence rears its head in Hugo Santos' hoarse, authoritative vocals, which manifest themselves as a harsh, monotone bark and surface only when necessary.
There is no fat to be trimmed here, despite the sprawling lengths of some of the compositions. Each song bleeds out into the next, offering up their own individual quirks but toeing the party line overall. The album's opening track, "Empire", manages to encapsulate everything they offer in almost 10 minutes of looped, mid-tempo guitar lines, throbbing bass, melancholy melodic underpinnings, and sparse, hostile roars ("You own nothing/ You are nothing"), entreating their audience to look inside themselves, and conquer what is theirs. Paranoia and hopelessness surface repeatedly, sentiments echoed by the music's urgent, bleak vibes. This is not a happy record; it's angry, and sad, and worried. Its sparing moments of beauty (like the oddly gentle breakdown and clean lament halfway through "Blindfold", or gossamer melodies in "Cleanse") are offset by the sheer crushing relentlessness that are Process of Guilt's bread and butter.
Fæmin's strength lies in its strangeness, its marriage of industrial sensibilities, doomed prophecies, and forbidding ambiance. There's just not much else out there that sounds like this. The band's ability to take a formulaic core and build it up to such impressive heights is a commendable achievement unto itself. They also, impressively, manage to imbue the album with a true sense of personality: In the end, Process of Guilt's earnestness is as endearing as their brutal approach is beguiling.
