By: Anders

Posted: Oct 22, 2006

This Swedish band is the brainchild of Johan Ericsson, which you might recognize from his other band Draconian, where he handles one of the guitars and writes a lot of the music. In Doom:VS he handles all himself while he let us drown in a funeral doomish landscape of desolate and sorrowful emotions.

Dark droning guitar riffs paints the sphere, cold and desolate, possessing a lot of emotion and passion, even though it is as cold and dark as it is, the music is very gripping and quite easy to get into. The music is in itself quite simple, but paint the emotions and atmospheres really well, while listening to the music on this album, a movie plays within the mind and one can only succumb into the void Doom:VS offers.

The vocals are a big part of the overall picture during the 6 tracks, the vocals differ between a haunted and low scream, more or less in key with the guitars, a deep and plagued growl and some spoken words passages, and of course the mandatory whispers. It all works really well in this context and each facet adds a new layer to the painting, the album becomes.

I guess the right reference to Doom:VS is funeral doom, even though the music isn't as heavy, dark and droning all the way through as much funeral doom usually is. There are some more epic and melancholic elements added on "Aeternum Vale", which do that fans of more regular doom and death/doom also can enjoy the cold darkness from this Swedish band. Johan has made a very whole album that can be enjoyed again and again, a beautiful piece of dark and atmospheric art perfect for the coming cold and black winter nights! This is a band I am sure we can expect a lot from in the future, this first offering possesses a lot of class and pure genius within its own context!

Rating: 8½/10

Doom:VS website

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