Doom:VS - Aeternum Vale review
| Band: | Doom:VS |
| Album: | Aeternum Vale |
| Style: | Funeral doom metal |
| Release date: | July 10, 2006 |
| Guest review by: | Constantine |
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"
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 10 |
| Songwriting: | 10 |
| Originality: | 9 |
| Production: | 10 |
Written by Constantine | 28.01.2014
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Rating:
8.6
8.6
|
Rating: 8.6 |
Doom:VS is the one-man project of Johan Ericson, one of the starting members of Draconian, playing the drums for them during the 1994-2002 era, while afterwards he switched to the guitars leaving the drumming to Jerry Torstensson. Having formed Doom:VS, he started moving towards his very own path, a path that could lead only to one dirrection, the dark side of doom metal, proving that he's really gifted and has a lot to offer to the scene. Something that proves me correct is the fact that he dealt with everything having to do with the debut album of this fabulous project, from the cover to the production and all the instrumentation. Read more ›› |
Comments
Comments: 6
Visited by: 90 users
| R Lewis Posts: 936  |
I'm not a fan of the band, but you have potential  Keep up the good work!
---- We could be so much more than we are. Stop.
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071  |
Totally love this band. What the guy does here is superior to anything he's ever done with Draconian. And apparently a new Doom:VS album is planned for this year.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996 
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| R Lewis Posts: 936 |
Written by [user id=135303] on 28.01.2014 at 19:20 Just a piece of advice: don't let this "1 review/week" rule you. Write only when you feel to. The main reason because Guest reviews are so valuable is that those are done with passion. It often happens to an official reviewer to have to review something, but he's not in the mood or, more simply, he doesn't know what to write and the review becomes complete crap. (Obviously I'm talking about my own experience, I don't know if the others feel the same). So, the moral is: review what you want, when you want.
---- We could be so much more than we are. Stop.
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| R Lewis Posts: 936 |
Written by [user id=135303] on 28.01.2014 at 19:35 If I have to say... The rating. I personally liked MS among other websites because it didn't use the reviews to lick the bands' asses giving them 10/10 at every album. Obviously you have no interest in doing that, but that's the impression an external reader gets. When you start reviewing, you obviously start from your favourite albums, so the initial high ratings are comprehensible, but a 10 and a 9.6 are really high. Moreover, you never see staff reviews so positive (except for SSUS's review for The SLoT, that I would have rated a 5.8 instead of 9.8 but that's another story  )The real problem with these high ratings is that the reader finds difficult to take the review seriously, since he already starts it thinking that the writer is a silly fanboy. This even if the review itself has quality, as yours. But then again, these are just my two cents. Feel free to do the way you prefer. 
---- We could be so much more than we are. Stop.
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| Monolithic ♠♠♠ Posts: 669  |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 28.01.2014 at 19:17 QFT. I'd pick every second of Doom:VS music over Draconian's entire discography. The rating is a little too high but the review was straight to the point and good.  Definitely looking forward to your next reviews.
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| Erik M. Posts: 3104  |
Written by R Lewis on 28.01.2014 at 19:48 Have to agree with this. Of course the rating isn't the most important thing of the review and it's subjective, but extremely high ratings (9.5+) can indeed come across as if the reviewer is a fanboy. That being said, keep up the good work. I like the album a whole lot but I can't say it's anywhere near a 9.6 for me. But then again, few albums are for me.
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