"This the the Doom of the Apocalypse..."
Uh, ok, if that's what you want to call it. I call Apocalypsis Damnare some of the slowest, sludgiest, non-musical doom metal I have ever heard. Remember the days when you would play your LP's or 45's on the slowest speed possible (17 rpm) , even going so far as to put your finger down on the record to get some sort of inhumanely groan out it? Well, if you did, then you can imagine what this re-recording of a 1999 album from the band Rigor Sardonicous sounds like. This is torturous stuff that makes bands like Black Sabbath, Trouble, Cathedral, Corrosion of Conformity, Saint Vitus, and Crowbar sound like speed metal bands. After the funeral like keyboards of the opening cut "Exordium", it's all down hill after that. Songs like "Pandemic" and the title track feature sludge riffs so slow you would swear they were sleeping on the job, and the drums plod along like the guy is in the middle of some bad heroin trip. The vocals-well, they are of the low-end warped/processed type, and are totally impossible to understand, plus it doesn't help that the lyrics of the booklet are so hard to read thanks to the tiny print and dark background either. It's funny because I really like the doom genre, but this album just left me scratching my head. Every track sounds the same, just one long death march that goes on and on and on. With the exception of "Misery", the CD's speediest track, the rest just plods along at the same turtle's pace with no relief in site.
I know there's a market out there for this kind of stuff, so if you like bands such as Thergothon, Celestiial, Skepticism, Panthiest, or Warhorse, then this might be right up your alley. However, if you like your doom with a little more musicality to it, and certainly at a slightly higher speed, then you might want to pass on this.
Track Listing
1) Exordium
2) Apocalypsis Damnare
3) Pandemic
4) Human Rot
5) Saprophyte
6) Holy Suicide
7) Misery
8) The Deathless Sol