Liste des groupes Doom Death Vitales Exsequiae A Short Lived Hope

I've been disappointed with a lot of death/doom, simply because they focus a lot more on the death aspect. I love a slice of pure, dark and melancholic doom - but the death metal contradicts this mood, and it often just doesn't work. Luckilly, this record has given me hope in the genre yet. Especially since these guys will probably be the future of the genre.

Despite the generalisations of the genre, this death/doom record does a very good job at implementing the death metal into the doom metal, without ruining the dark brooding atmosphere. Instead of death with doom elements, this is doom with death elements - which I appreciate for sure! You can really tell a genuine effort has gone into constructing this record.

The 4 songs on this record all have something to offer, and I'd certainly put it at the level of some of the higher up bands out there. There is a lot to criticize here, but with the sufficient help financially and creatively, these issues may have well never existed in the first place.

As previously stated, the sound is very dark and brooding. But the death metal infleunce here is very evident when the tempo changes to a faster beat. I feel the transitions between the slow and fast sections need work, I think they change too suddenly and they don't really blend together - it's as if half the band like doom and half the band like death, so they infused every idea into one song. They need to do a better job of splicing these styles together, but with more intuitive transitions between sections, this will be remedied. Nonetheless, each section is performed with a certain grace that has to be applauded for a smaller band - it can take a long time for a band to infuse every instrument perfectly in sections, but this band seem to just blend together. It's very impressive.

But this record isn't without its flaws - as previously mentioned. Firstly, the transitions, but we've been through that. Secondly, the keyboards need a lot of work. They sound horribly unrealistic and ruin the overall atmosphere of the tracks, they need to be a lot more ambient instead of being so dominant over the other instruments - it somewhat ruined the record for me. But I can tell this is partly due to lack of funds, so I can overlook it to an extent. I just hope the band are aware that it needs to be sorted. Maybe some reverb on the keyboards would make them a lot more tolerable? Just a thought.

Every track is very similar, so a track-by-track review would be pointless. But the standout track for me is "Pale Morning ; Then The Void", I think it utilizes everything that's good about this band into one, and it's certainly the strongest song on the record. It's multi-layered, well written and great to listen to. It's also worth mentioning that the lyrics on this album are relatively well written, too. They suit the mood well.

This record will certainly serve as an advantage to Vitales Exsequiae, and is certainly good enough to bring them the attention of fans of bigger bands in the genre. Every instrument bleeds together well, every song is written to a good standard, and this record is certainly good enough to compete with the bigger bands out there. The production is decent enough, and the songs are decent enough. I recommend this to all fans of the death/doom genre, and I hope you give these guys support. Though some things definitely need to be worked on, there's a lot of hope in this band yet - and if things go well, it certainly won't be short lived.

Vitales Exsequiae is a rather young band from Italy. They deal in Doom Death and now serve us with a promising debut EP/demo. Now if you’ve been following the Doom Death scene, you know that some bands prefer bleak vistas just like Winter or Sorrow and some others add that "melancholic" feeling in their music notably with the use of keyboards and strings just like My Dying Bride would.


Vitales Exsequiae clearly fall in the latter category but add some personal touches here and there making their music not dull at any moment and clearly not like it’s somebody else’s copycat. Four tracks may seem too little to apprehend a band but dealing with Doom acts, you know that each track lasts at the very least five minutes and sometimes double that time. It’s ample enough time to find stuff that you will like and some that you wish would have been done differently.

Obviously I’ve cited My Dying Bride earlier on, but I'm not sure Vitales Exsequiae influences take up much from that band. The overwhelming use of keyboards in their music definitely reminded me of The Gathering's debut album Always. And just as I value Always to be classical Doom Death, I also find some flaws mainly in plain words: the keyboards sound a bit cheesy. But not all the time.

At times, those keyboards are really a plus giving it that Horror Metal feeling which you often find in Italian bands. I guess this has a lot to do with the influences of Prog Horror Music masters Jacula and Antonius Rex something that you find in many Italian bands be it Black Metal (Mortuary Drape), Heavy Metal (Blood Thirsty Demons) or simply Doom Metal (Abysmal Grief). I must confess that whenever I listen to such horrific keyboards, I almost always fall in love with the music.

Vocals are Death Metal style obviously but they have something raspy about them and they reminded me of Shape Of Despair, another referential Doom act, from which Vitales Exsequiae may have drawn influences keyboards-wise.

The best song is definitely “Pale morning, then the void” because it goes beyond the scope of simple Doom Death. It has something folkish about it and almost post-rock as if you'd be listening to a sped up version of Asunder. The other three tracks are good but this one definitely is in another league of its own and probably would be interesting to see developed in future releases because I'm afraid that with the other material present on this record, they'll always fall behind comparisons with Mar de Grises or My Dying Bride and it would definitely not help them.

Tuning up the production a bit, making these keyboards more “horror” and less “cheese”, working on the parts that definitely make the band interesting rather than mere followers, should end up with a record deal. On the other hand, should the production stay amateurish and new tracks turn out to be the same good ole song, I don’t see any future at all.

At this stage, Vitales Exsequiae is an interesting and promising band. Next stage, we’ll know for sure if the genre might give birth to a new contender or just wallow in the cesspool of “first demo, then out”.