{"id":533268,"date":"2025-10-28T12:57:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T12:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/533268\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T12:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T12:57:11","slug":"dwelling-below-wearisome-guardians-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/533268\/","title":{"rendered":"Dwelling Below – Wearisome Guardians Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The boys in Dwelling Below<\/strong> get a lot of facetime here at AMG. We\u2019ve reviewed Hierarchies<\/strong>\u2019 debut<\/a> (Jared Moran, Anthony Wheeler, Nicolas Turner), all<\/a> three<\/a> albums<\/a> by Acausal Intrusion<\/strong> (Moran, Turner), one<\/a> by Filtheater<\/strong> (Moran), and we\u2019ve done a filter piece<\/a> on Feral Lord<\/strong> (Moran, Turner). It\u2019s no wonder, as we tend to enjoy the angry, dissonant stuff they put out. I\u2019ve been jonesing for something in that ballpark, so when I learned that Dwelling Below<\/strong>\u2019s debut<\/a> unnerved Thus Spoke<\/strong> enough to waive seniority, I quickly snagged their follow-up. Hoping it might hit the spot, I eagerly dug my grubby lil nubbins into Wearisome Guardians.<\/p>\n

Dwelling Below was a filthy slab of long-form deathened doom, and Wearisome Guardians offers much of the same. Look at that cover art. It sounds exactly how you\u2019d expect: like bathing in stagnant catacomb water. Cavernous, mad, and malevolent, Moran echoes through abandoned tombs, disturbing centuries of eight-legged architecture. On the skins, he nearly wakes the dead with frenetic onslaughts of double bass and unsettling cymbals. Turner\u2019s guitar stillbirths an unholy union of Saint Vitus<\/strong> and Autopsy<\/strong>. Warped and abrasive riffs lumber forward, inexorable and lethal as a cave-in, while tormented leads scream psychosis from a neighboring cell (\u201cTerminal Experiments,\u201d \u201cSacraments\u201d). Ever-so-slightly discordant basslines weave and coil around your ankles as Wheeler encourages a reexamination of your sanity. Like meeting a skinwalker, you know something\u2019s off, but it\u2019s hard to describe, and it\u2019s fucking terrifying.<\/p>\n

\ufeffWearisome Guardians by DWELLING BELOW<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a little oxymoronic to call 1.) dissonant 2.) death\/doom 3.) metal accessible, but Wearisome Guardians is perhaps Moran\u2019s most approachable offering yet. His aforementioned acts all shove their base genres through the same twisted, dissonant lens, but compared to Hierarchies<\/strong> or Acausal Intrusion<\/strong>, Dwelling Below<\/strong> is almost melodic. Between chaotic, atonal passages and vicious whammy abuse, Turner employs more traditional riffcraft learned long ago at Candlemass<\/strong> (\u201cWearisome Guardians,\u201d \u201cTerminal Experiments\u201d). Leads in \u201cUnfolding Universe\u201d and \u201cThe Altar\u201d reveal traces of Brocas Helm<\/strong> and Cirith Ungol<\/strong>, while \u201cSacraments\u201d reaches further back, unearthing the legendary B.B. King<\/strong> for a solo, soulful, bright, and blue. These ancestral trappings are strung with care and shine brilliantly against Dwelling Below<\/strong>\u2019s murky core. Wearisome Guardians offers these moments of reprieve from its oppressive violence, like guiding lights coaxing you deeper into the dark.<\/p>\n

\"\"At 51 minutes, Wearisome Guardians isn\u2019t terribly long for the genre, but with an average track length of ten minutes, it certainly isn\u2019t a casual listen. Luckily, songcraft is not a weakness Dwelling Below<\/strong> suffers. Far from sedentary, Wearisome Guardians is in constant motion. Most riffs only linger a few moments before evolving into something new or reverting to a main throughline. Even when a riff tarries longer, the bass, drums, or vocals twist and shift, keeping things fresh and engaging throughout. More than this, each song seems built around clearly defined movements. Even on a first listen, I could guess my place in a song fairly well. There\u2019s an intuitive logic to each track\u2019s pace, allowing Wearisome Guardians to feel lean and efficient with no real fat to trim. Even the 90-second \u201cInterlude\u201d belongs. What initially feels like a respite reveals itself to be just as unsettling as the rest of the album. Bright and metallic, this moment\u2019s tainted rest doesn\u2019t let you forget what\u2019s on the other side.<\/p>\n

I wished for some grimy, cavernous filth, and I got it. Wearisome Guardians is a menace to experience. I honestly thought it hyperbole when Thus Spoke<\/strong> said their debut induced fear, but exaggeration it was not. Even with bright moments that fractionally lessen the tension, Dwelling Below<\/strong> is still deeply unnerving. These casket campers know what they\u2019re doing, and they\u2019re good at it. Wearisome Guardians is a strong success on both atmospheric and compositional fronts. Dwelling Below<\/strong> doesn\u2019t just want to show you the dark. They want to leave you there without a torch and seal the tomb. This sophomore effort is claustrophobic, sepulchral, and evil. Wearisome Guardians is viscerally unsafe, and it\u2019s here to break you if you\u2019ve got the nerve to let it.<\/p>\n

Rating:<\/strong> 3.5\/5.0
DR:<\/strong> 10 | Format Reviewed:<\/strong> 320 kbps mp3
Label:<\/strong> Transcending Obscurity Records<\/a>
Websites:<\/strong> Bandcamp<\/a> | Facebook<\/a>
Releases Worldwide:<\/strong> October 31st, 2025<\/p>\n

\n\tGive in to Your Anger:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The boys in Dwelling Below get a lot of facetime here at AMG. We\u2019ve reviewed Hierarchies\u2019 debut (Jared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[743,10268,172582,12295,103800,172583,172584,20151,172585,12935,12936,10273,172586,77,172587,172588,172589,269,156239,6080,6082,172590,111739,16,15,172591],"class_list":{"0":"post-533268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-743","9":"tag-3-5","10":"tag-acausal-intrusion","11":"tag-american-metal","12":"tag-autopsy","13":"tag-b-b-king","14":"tag-brocas-helm","15":"tag-candlemass","16":"tag-cirith-ungol","17":"tag-death-doom","18":"tag-death-metal","19":"tag-doom-metal","20":"tag-dwelling-below","21":"tag-entertainment","22":"tag-feral-lord","23":"tag-filtheater","24":"tag-hierarchies","25":"tag-music","26":"tag-oct25","27":"tag-review","28":"tag-reviews","29":"tag-saint-vitus","30":"tag-transcending-obscurity-records","31":"tag-uk","32":"tag-united-kingdom","33":"tag-wearisome-guardians"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115451910977143366","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}