This Dutch band features former and current members of Planet AIDS, Bunkur and Funeral Goat and has been lurking around the underground doom scene since earlier this past decade - in fact, it took seven years before Abysmal Darkening finally got around to putting out their first full length, after releasing one demo back in 2004. The band's excruciatingly slow progress may well have been infected by the extreme sluggishness of their music, which centers around a mix of slow grinding doom metal cut from the greasy black cloth of classic 80's dirge merchants like Saint Vitus, The Obsessed and Pentagram; a heavy dose of feral old school Nordic black metal a la Darkthrone; and some dour downcast moves into depressive black metal that they manage to meld pretty well with the blackened doom. No Light Behind has the huge sauropod riffs and bleak outlook that I want to hear whenever anyone mines that older style of doom, but singer Kev delivers these snarling crusty vocals and deeper growls (which often turn into a killer Abbath-like sneer) that add a fierceness to Abysmal Darkening's music, which really takes off whenever they suddenly break out of the Sabbathian dirge into raw, messy black metal blasts and mid-paced Burzum-esque gallop. The first time that this occurs (on the opener "Behold The Gods"), it sounds odd and unexpected, but as the album goes on, this mix of atavistic doom and manic blast evolves into their signature sound, like a weird mix of Darkthrone and Vitus that's shot through with an extra dose of abjest misery and oppressive dread. The six originals are laced with mournful guitar leads and moments of depressed blackened majesty, but the closer, a cover of the classic Sisters of Mercy song "Marian", is killer finale. Abysmal Darkening turn the song (which was already plenty dark and ominous in its original form) into slow, grief-stricken blackened doom, with that memorable melancholic hook winding down in slow motion as the lyrics are gasped in a horrific charred croak. Very nice.