[Click play above to stream Naevus’ ‘Black Sun’ from Heavy Burden. Album is out Aug. 19 on Meta Matter Records.]

In the crowded annals of the last two decades-plus of doom, one might be forgiven for letting Naevus slip through the cracks. Why? Well, it’s been 18 years since the German double-guitar four-piece made their debut on Rise Above Records with 1998’s Sun Meditation, and though they took part in a split on Game Two with Revelation, Mood and Twisted Tower Dire, took part in the 1999 Trouble tribute, Bastards Will Pay (discussed here) and even issued a comp of rare tracks in 2009 before actually getting back together in 2012, their second long-player, Heavy Burden, arrives through Meta Matter Records as 11 tracks/55 minutes light on fanfare and heavy on classic doom. They leave little to wonder about what’s the burden in question. It’s riffs, and so be it.

With stylistic debt to Maryland-style doom — The Obsessed and Pentagram, specifically — Naevus follow up their long-ago first album and their 2012 Universal Overdrive limited 7″ without missing a beat, as though Sun Meditation came out three years ago and Heavy Burden was simply the next phase of a songwriting progression playing out, not necessarily a reunion offering. Granted, production styles have changed in the last 18 years and Heavy Burden isn’t as raw as its predecessor, but that would likely be the case one album to the next to some degree anyway, and the point is that Naevus don’t sound any rustier in “Naked,” “Black Sun,” or “Future Footprints” than they want to — which is to say that doom almost always wants to sound a little rusty — and their material comes across as a fresh take on the traditional form.

Guitarist/vocalist Uwe Groebel and drummer Mathias Straub went on to play in VoodooShock, while guitarist Oliver Großhans is formerly of Sacred Steel (in which Straub also plays) and bassist Sven Heimerdinger of Rebirth, so Naevus has by no means been its members’ only outlet over the years. That might play into how smoothly they seem to slip back into action with cohesive songwriting on the opening title-track and songs like “Timeless Illusion” and “Dead Summer Day,” which follows “Heavy Burden,” “Black Sun” and “Naked” as part of a strong and immersive salvo to begin the journey of the record as a whole.

It’s not a short journey at nearly an hour, but as noted, it’s been almost 20 years, so one seems inclined to forgive the band for indulging the CD-era convention of a longer runtime, and their craft proves largely unwavering throughout, Groebel establishing a range and sticking to it while his and Großhans‘ guitars lead the way with thick-grooving riffs rolled along Straub‘s forward-minded drumming and given heft through Heimerdinger‘s low end. They toy with pace on “Dancing in the Summer Rain,” a side B dive into lyrical nostalgia — lines about dancing naked in the summer rain and drinking beer; must have been quite a camping trip — and bring to bear some faster thrust in the spirit of the aforementioned Trouble, but by then Heavy Burden has already set its own identity with its tones and overarching moodiness. What ties the album together, ultimately, is a consistency of sound via the production and that emotional crux. It’s not showy by any means, even when they get to the organ on “The Dwarves’ Revenge” before the closing “Outro,” but remains expressive all the same.

That closer, by the way, is more than just a simple interlude. It leaves behind the distorted heft in favor of acoustic textures that further highlight Groebel‘s vocals, and though it’s shorter than the other tracks at just over three minutes, it brings additional context to Heavy Burden as a whole and offers a sweeter take particularly in its final moments than one might expect from a record that’s spent so much time riffing out on “The Whistling Tree” or a bruiser like “Cloudless Sunstreams.” Naevus‘ roots stretch back to 1991 and their first demo was issued in 1993, so the band has plenty of history, and their earliest work was in a much more extreme aesthetic, so I don’t want to make it seem like they’ve simply regrouped and put Heavy Burden together like it’s no big deal — worth pointing out that they’ve been back for four years and the album is only now complete — or that there’s no stylistic growth from Sun Meditation. That’s simply not the case. Rather, Heavy Burden succeeds precisely because it’s so plainspoken in its presentation, and what it captures in traditional doom would ring false any other way. Naevus do many things in these tracks, but ring false is not one of them.

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