Föhn is both the German word for hairdryer or a type of dry, relatively warm downslope wind. I apogolise for overwriting one fond childhood memory with this information, but let me add some context: since 2016, Föhn is also the name of a Greek funeral doom trio – and after listening to their debut full-length both meticulously and multiple times, I can state that their take on music has absolutely nothing in common with any of the above. It is neither warm, nor comforting, nor a meteorological phenomenon. Instead, it is among the most challenging and rewarding funeral doom I have heard in a long time.

Advanced Interrogation Techniques

The album consists of four tracks, all of which are connected by a cohesive narrative and centering around the same question: “what happened to your innocence?” Throughout the four songs, Föhn apply different interrogation techniques, forcing the listener to do some long overdue soul-searching and deal with themselves. Take album opener “Bereft”: literally two seconds into the song, a spastic soprano saxophone begins to unflinchingly stagger around the interrogation room alongside tortured voices, instantly evoking the uneasy feeling of barely contained insanity and volatile self-restraint. The voices, like a choir of condemned souls screaming in sheer terror, accentuate the chaos – and all of that happens within the first minute of the album. After the two-minute mark, the song slowly becomes more structured as repetitive, attritional riffs and drums overpower the erratic opening. The saxophone stays present, further enhancing the outlandish, slightly nightmarish touch of the song – whose assignment clearly is to bereave the listener of their sanity. At this point, the addition of genre-typical death growls almost has a calming effect, but this will not last long. The song’s attritional character is shortly breached by the use of a gentle guitar interplay – soothing the suffering before getting pulverised by the abyssal vocals and classic instrumentation again – this time enriched by a more gentle tenor saxophone. For the remainder of the song, the cavernous vocals are heavily raining down upon the listener with urgency and crushing pressure, a brute-force interrogation hammering home the aforementioned question – what happened to your innocence? Where did it go? Why did you let it slip away? The song fades out with a delicate ending, as does its successor. Generally, the songs do hardly vary in structure: all of them start with an extended intro, at times reaching sluggish territory. The buildup is effective in each of the four songs, but some passages simply are too long. Yet, the intros are of different nature: “A Day After” commences with sounds of children playing outside and gentle rain. Before long, atmospheric keys darken the scene, expressing the natural, creeping loss of naivety – a great stilistic choice and stark contrast to the spastic beginnings of its predecessor. Drawn-out strums set in for several minutes, giving way to a clean and sombre interplay before the song hits with full force. The lyrics add another layer to a carefully constructed portrayal of deprivation, throwing the listener into a limbo of existential dread. Towards the end, an angelic choir is juxtaposing the leaden severity ever so slightly, inciting in the mind another question: is innocence truly lost or does the possibility of redemption still exist?

Monsters Profit From Human Misery

“The Weight of Nothing” also opens with sombre keys enriched with both monotonous guitar and drums. It is Föhn channeling their inner The Howling Void, heavily reminiscent of the projects most bleak (and everlasting) endeavours. The weight of being and meaning nothing – not only in the grand scheme of things, but to no one – is the song’s lyrical theme, as with the loss of naivety came the loss of purpose and direction. “How heavy does it feel to be empty and alone? How heavy does it feel being heard by no one?” Hard-hitting lyrics, towards the end of the song accentuated by something I do not want to call a breakdown – but what essentially is one: heavy, chugging guitars playing over a melancholic melody while the drums are adding on more and more weight. I did not expect hearing a passage like that at all, but it was highly enjoyable. “Persona” changes things up again, opening with an extended spoken word passage from a heroine-addicted sexworker (which surely would have been just as effective at half length, but adds a ton of emotional weight). Lyrically, this is the most challenging piece of the album, contemplating the inevitable deprivation of innocence for the profit of a few through dehumanisation of the many. Instruments are enriched with the sparse, gentle usage of the tenor saxophone again. The song’s centre is marked by a brief return to lounge atmosphere, before returning to few and far between strums. Towards the album’s end, a climax is being built up, with the guitar playing the most subtle and tiny melody while a piano is introduced, playing sparsely yet hauntingly, constantly intensifying throughout the finale. This is also the only moment where the vocals deviate from genre standards, the death growls making way for distraught screams. It is an intense moment, teeming with grandeur and tragedy until it all comes to an abrupt halt on a jarring piano chord.

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Many of the genre-adjacent adjectives do not apply to “Condescending” in the way they do to other albums. For example, it lacks the solemn tragic of Bell Witch, the soothing serenity of The Howling Void, or the suicide-inducing weltschmerz of Nortt. Do not get me wrong: these words still apply, just in another sense. That is not a negative and – like the fact that some passages are drawn out a little too long – does not make it any less excellent. I would rather have a tad too much of a good thing than be left yearning for more; and I would rather be challenged by an uneasy album bound to dismantle the circumstances destroying our souls instead of listening to another one that is itself targeted at destroying my soul. That is exactly what Föhn do, and they excel at it. This undeniably is one of the best funeral doom records of the year 2024.