TodoMal — the name translates to “all bad” or “all evil” — were born in 2020 out of the arid heart of Eastern Spain, as an Anglo-Spanish partnership between Christopher B. Wildman and Javier Fernández Milla, two veterans of the Spanish underground. From that core duo, the band expanded into a five-piece live ensemble, bringing in key figures including Javier Félez and Cecilia Tallo. “Graveyards of Joy,” out July 3rd via Season of Mist, is the final act of a trilogy that began with “Ultracrepidarian” (2021) and continued with “A Greater Good” (2023). The album was written in solitude in the aftermath of personal tragedy, channeling grief, rage, and — in the band’s own words — a hard-won hope. The sound is a studied fusion of Doom Metal gravity, Space Rock expansiveness, and Cinematic atmosphere, consolidating and stretching their sonic universe to its furthest reach yet. The album opens with “Mare Ignis,” and the immersion is immediate — layered, atmospheric, unhurried. The rhythm section moves at a deliberate crawl, holding the piece in suspension while keyboards build dense sonic beds over which guitar lines and dual vocals interweave. The tension never breaks; the sound dilates and expands, filling every available space in a slow-burning crescendo loaded with singular emotional weight. Cecilia‘s choral contributions in the finale, braided with the male vocal and the outward press of the instrumentation, carry the track to its conclusion without ever releasing the grip. “Lucid Nightmare” introduces heavier, darker elements — thick riffs, down-tuned bass, opening into wider spaces at the choruses. Cecilia‘s vocal inserts continue to expand the background. The bass line here is load-bearing, genuinely driving the groove, while the drumming brings harder time signature shifts and considerably more weight than the opener. The track builds toward something close to a choral texture, keyboards lifting the entire structure as the lead vocal delivers one of the record’s more commanding performances. “Point of Coalescence” pushes the sound further into Heavy, oppressive territory — interlocking guitar and bass riffing, a drum performance that hits with real force. The vocal is evocative and enveloping; the track does exactly what the title suggests, gathering scattered sonic particles into a dense mass, a wall that the voice cuts through. It’s the darkest and heaviest moment so far, leaning hard into Atmospheric Doom, evoking precisely the kind of silence that sits over the ghost towns of rural Spain. “Misericordiah” functions as an interlude of sorts, maintaining the pervasive melancholy without breaking it open. Guitar arpeggios carry the piece, the vocal charged with pathos; the keyboards offer an orchestral undertow while the percussion colors the edges. It resolves in a vocal duet and the slow evolution of the arpeggiated figure — a brief pause before the record tilts back into motion. Dilated Atmospheric riffs and keyboards set the stage before the track settles into something more direct on “Unholy” — a hypnotic bass line as the anchor, refined keyboard textures, and one of the most intense vocal performances on the record. The time changes give the rhythm section real dimension, and the instrumental passages evolve through a building tension that absorbs electronic elements and effects, expanding the melodic architecture through orchestration and Heavy riffage in equal measure. It’s a track that takes the band’s established language into more exploratory territory without losing the thread. In “Deliverance” Melancholic acoustic arpeggios lead the way, returning to the expanded, dilated textures of the early tracks, the rhythm section moving again at depth and deliberate pace. The interplay between acoustic passages with percussion and Heavy electric openings finds its natural resolution here — emotional weight as compositional architecture. In the second half, the band builds through orchestral and symphonic passages, brushing at moments against Prog without abandoning their identity. “Humanised Gods” opens with immediate rhythmic purpose and directness, orchestral textures interlocking with guitar riffs to form the backdrop over a groove-dense rhythm section. The vocal is warm and expressive; a hypnotic synth gives the track its propulsive charge. The organ adds texture in the second half, where a structural shift brings in a darker instrumental section before the final sung passages. “For Mercy” marks a distinct turn — acoustic guitar and synth, Folk and Rock elements intersecting with a genuine 70s sensibility, a trace of Psych-Prog in the character of the piece. The lyrical repetition of “For Mercy” becomes incantatory, wrapping around the listener and guiding through to the end. The album closes with the title track, “Graveyards of Joy” — the emotional apex, the search for “something on the other side” of loss given full form. Atmospheric Doom, sounds expanding and layering from the opening notes outward, enveloping. The vocal is sharp and deliberate, interpreting the intense lyrical content with the band’s characteristic pathos. Here TodoMal locate the precise intersection of tension, emotional weight, and enveloping atmosphere — every defining quality of the project gathered in a single closing statement, and with it, the trilogy ends. Recorded between Moontower Studios and Trinitat-Montseny, “Graveyards of Joy” is a record of genuine emotional depth. The cover — “Ruïnes” (1865) by Lluís Rigalt — reads as an exact visual correlate to the music’s interior logic: decadence and beauty in productive tension. The album exists in multiple formats. TodoMal have made a record that holds drama and delicacy, light and darkness in sustained balance — and in doing so, have arrived at an unambiguous maturity within the modern Alternative/Doom landscape.
Tracklist
01. Mare Ignis (05:14)
02. Lucid Nightmare (04:31)
03. Point Of Coalescence (05:03)
04. Misericordiah (02:50)
05. Unholy (04:21)
06. Deliverance (07:25)
07. Humanised Gods (03:53)
08. For Mercy (03:02)
09. Graveyards Of Joy (06:50)
Recording Lineup
Wildman / Guitars and Vocals
Mile / Bass and Vocals
Javi / Guitars
Bud / Drums
Cecilia / Synths and Vocals