Three years after their debut Remnants of the Vessel, Faetooth have released their second album, Labyrinthine, on The Flenser. This work showcases the band’s artistic maturation, transforming the premises of “Fairy Doom” into something deeper and more personal.
Produced as a collaboration between Joseph Calleiro and the trio composed of Ari May (guitar/vocals), Jenna Garcia (bass/vocals) and Rah Kanan (drums), Labyrinthine is an album that abandons the search for layered tonal perfection of its predecessor to focus on emotional intensity. The ten tracks construct an introspective journey made up of methodical crescendos and atmospheres that oscillate between ethereal suspension and devastating impact.
Faetooth’s sound has evolved towards a more refined balance between Sludge/Doom heaviness and Shoegaze moments. Ethereal textures flow into wave-like riffs, creating carefully crafted dynamics that never seek effect for its own sake. Calleiro’s warm and enveloping mix allows each element to breathe, from the comparably more incisive grooves of the debut to the cathartic explosions that punctuate the album.
Vocally, Labyrinthine presents a more balanced dialogue between the cleaner, ethereal parts and the scratchy sections. Ari May and Jenna Garcia’s acts are key in looking at suffering, healing, and memory. They shift from vague dreams to facing real, lasting hurts. Their deep look pulls us to think, not run away.
Among the most significant tracks is “Hole”, a visceral catharsis where explosions of vocals follow darker meditations. “White Noise” develops a perfectly calibrated internal tension, with lyrics that seem to be taken from a personal diary. “Death of Day” surprises with its heavy chugs and a serpentine waltz section, while “It Washes Over” ideally concludes the journey with an enveloping wave that invites total immersion. The finale, “Meet Your Maker”, an over eight minutes synthesis between Shoegaze cathedral and Doom abyss, is perhaps the most successful moment of the entire piece.
Labyrinthine is an album that requires patience. Its constant flow and the linearity of certain passages might suggest moments of stasis, but it is precisely in this apparent uniformity that we can find its strength. The album works as a unified experience, a slow burn that rewards those willing to abandon themselves completely to its hypnotic flow.
Compared to Remnants of the Vessel, the growth is evident. Faetooth seem to have abandoned the more direct approach and compact structures of their debut to embrace expansive compositions that favour atmosphere over dynamics. The result is a more mature album, confident in its own identity, which finds its main strength in immersion.
Labyrinthine is aimed primarily at listeners of Atmospheric Doom/Sludge and Doomgaze, with obvious references to Lowen, Chelsea Wolfe and Thou, but also affinities for Messa and more cinematic Doom/Shoegaze. It is an album that requires time and attention, but rewards the listener with a profound and cathartic emotional experience.
With Labyrinthine, Faetooth have created an album that represents not only a step forward in their artistic evolution, but also a more precise definition of their “Fairy Doom”. It is dark and “soul-crushing” music, as our friends at CleanAndSoberStoner described it, but with glimmers of hope emerging from the darkness. A triumph that confirms the potential of a band destined to leave its mark on the contemporary doom scene.
