Evoken – Atra Mors (Profound Lore, 2012)

For the past several years, I’ve felt very close to death.  No matter what direction life has taken me in, it seems that death is there to meet me at every turn, taking away family, friends and acquaintances with a disturbing frequency.  In the past month alone both my cousin and an old college professor have passed from this mortal coil, both well before their time.  This increasing familiarity with death has indeed bred contempt; contempt for the callousness and randomness with which it has wrenched my loved ones from this already painful existence.  Of course, no one in their right mind is fond of death, but the inordinate number of deaths I’ve had to weather recently has served to make me despise life’s final chapter that much more, if such a thing is possible.