Band:	Doom:VS
Album:	Aeternum Vale
Style:	Funeral doom metal
Release date:	July 2006

01. The Light That Would Fade
02. Empire Of The Fallen
03. The Faded Earth
04. Oblivion Upon Us
05. The Crawling Insects
06. Aeternus

Aeternum Vale is Latin for farewell forever, how fitting for the crushing debut of Doom:VS

The line I would use to sum up this album to its fullest is an excerpt from the song "Oblivion Upon Us": "I myself have built the cross I wear", and boy does that line describe it. The cover art depicts a desolated earth with only one tree just fading into view, it creates a sense of hopelessness before you even start listening to the album.

Alright, so the album boasts funeral doom blended excellently with melodic death doom, surprisingly also for a funeral death doom work all the songs except one are well under the ten minute mark. The vocals have great depth, the growls carry the bleak feeling of death and the clean vocals, which throughout the album are paired with extremely pleasing melodic guitar leads and sometimes a violin, convey a huge burden of sorrow and suffering, the clean vocals really work for this album, they make you feel things, and there are a lot of them in here. There are no female vocals save for the last track in which they have a minor appearance. The production is very good, the vocals are crisp, the drums have impact and the melodic guitar passages sound excellent.

All the songs here have a story to tell, it's always a soul crushing story of course, a story of destroyed dreams and lost hope. They talk about the futility of life, and the agonizing moments of death. Also, there isn't a weak song in the album and there isn't that song where I look at it and say it's not as good as the others, my favorite song of this album changes through the weeks as I listen to it more. A complaint I have is that the track "Empire Of The Fallen" has a somewhat generic chorus line which only appears twice and honestly it could have been omitted and the song would be better. "The Faded Earth" is the slowest track in the album, with funeral doom taking over noticeably from the other songs. "Oblivion Upon Us" is probably my favorite track at the moment with its two excellent choruses and guitar lead.

Aeternum Vale is one of the finest funeral doom releases ever. You will feel alone while listening to this album, the desolation of the barren earth will embrace you.

I chose to finish this off with some words from the album, hopefully to leave you with a sense of what this album captures:

"I myself have built the cross I wear
Every passing day is filled with despair
I spit upon humanity, I see the world as dust
I feel no compassion neither love or lust..
Oblivion upon us"