Review by Jeger on July 10, 2024.

As darkness has permeated Suomi horizons o’er winter-swept landscapes: frigid, dismal and depressive, Finland’s 2 Wolves have been honing their maledictive craft since 2011 as harbingers of doom. Katatonia, My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost worship, but ever so Suomi as far as the melody and the melancholy are concerned. A rare acquisition for the generally BM-driven Werewolf Records, but a proud one nonetheless. A little something to expand the old portfolio. I can dig it… 

I don’t know if you got the email but we’re fucked… No hope for a brighter tomorrow and only the ashes & dust of bitter memories to see us off into our most inglorious futures. How very doom… Prepare to just fucking give up on everything and throw in the old towel because it’s Not Worth It - a brilliantly miserable, contemporary work of melancholic doom: epic, silky smooth, elegant as one Aaron Stainthorpe and unveiled on May 13, 2024 via the aforementioned Sages of the underground, Werewolf Records. 

Finnish melancholy incarnate as each passage to the opening track, 'No Longer', plays out to contemplative soliloquies; projecting the pain and walking away from it all in these dreadful moments of bittersweet liberation. Piano-accented atmosphere during some parts and abyssal Nick Holmes-heralding gutturals during others - all tied together with riff upon punishing riff driven upon the thud of impassioned rhythms. Did I mention Katatonia? Because fans of this particular Swedish institution will certainly dig what’s going on here; that sleek Aston Martin-like air of sonic sex appeal and just the zero compromise approach taken to the realization of each album cut as if these guys have been at it for just as long. 

An album for the remembrance of brighter days; days when the nectar of youth ran sweet and the excitement for tomorrow was perpetual. But now? As the years have drug onward and as the scars have thickened over once tender flesh, we find ourselves broken, fucked… 'A Garden Of Ashes' to lull you into a gentle state of suicidality as the violins weep and theatrical clean vocalizations promise dismal assurances of impending futility. Death fucking somber yet beautiful as fog-lain waters after rainfall. Haven’t even mentioned how brutal this thing is. HUGE, pounding guitar riffs, man, like shit off of an old Candlemass record but magnified through modern recording and amplified through godlike vocalizations. 

A little black metal revelry to take in during the opening moments of 'Where Birds Can Sing No More' as the streamlined momentum of blast-beats and the feathered uplift of ethereal tremolo passages set a most magnificent tone, only to be driven back once again into the gravity of it all: HEAVY, bass-driven and dense like perdition’s wrecking ball smashing through mirrors of yesteryear and only the promise of grim death as consolation for a lifetime’s worth of transgressions… 

Doom motherfucker and it does get better but not by much. Only the old heads are capable of making albums like Not Worth It and I think that speaks volumes to the dynamics of the Finnish metal scene. Always something amazing coming out of Suomi and this record is no exception. Fan the flames of cataclysm’s blaze and watch it all fucking burn now before grey rains come to wash it all away for good. Music to soundtrack one’s descent into a state of complete and total hopelessness and yet so undeniably irresistible. Some disjointed parts here and there but altogether a world-beating doom metal album. Here’s to the frailty of coming days and to the bitter end of it all. May your release be as sweet as these melodies have been… 

Rating: 8 out of 10