Doom:VS - Dead Words Speak (2008)

Doom:VS' debut in 2006 firmly established the project as a second-tier melodic death/doom outfits with it's solid, yet not quite amazing take on the genre. Aeternum Vale was a well-balanced effort that showed off Johan Ericson's solo abilities outside of Draconian and, with its pleasant focus on heavy synthesized atmospheres and oftentimes funereal pacing, stood as a sign of good things to come.

Dead Words Speak opens up well enough with "Half Light", which, after a slow fade-in, exhibits a richer production with some heavy riffs and ominous synth lines. But, even as this song progresses, it becomes readily apparent that this isn't exactly a step forward. The earliest sign of this comes in with the vocals, growled cries whose last syllables are monotonously dragged out to effectively double the length of each word. These aren't necessarily new for Doom:VS, yet the less spacious, more up-front sound of Dead Words Speak gives the singing a more prominent position that highlights their deficiencies. They're also far more pervasive on this album, barely ever leaving space for the music to breath. Even the clean vocals have dropped in quality, although this can't be blamed on the production - Aeternum Vale's enjoyable mixture of sung and spoken styles has been largely tossed in favour of often cornily phoned-in, My Dying Bride-lite spoken sections that generally do more to highlight the unimpressive lyrics than anything. Although actually sung parts do pop up, and still sound great, they don't get nearly enough use. Lyrically, Dead Words Speak has a self-pitying, depressive vein running through it that has very little doom to it - rather, it makes me wish that Johan would get out in the sun and play with some puppies. Keeping par with the rest of the review, the music on this album is likewise less inspired, chock full of riffs whose only claim to doomship lies in a miasma of repetition. The melodic leads and atmospheric touches, hell, even the rare low-key sections, are still quite dismal, but they don't make up enough of the songs to save them, appearing instead as bubbles of fresh air to sustain listeners through the doldrums.

It really isn't hard to see that Johan knows what he's doing. However, his work with Doom:VS has suffered in the transition to a more professional sound. Simple and unexciting, Dead Words Speak is a competent yet soulless work that belies the promise of the debut, although it still retains promising elements that will hopefully feature more prominently on further releases.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

http://www.myspace.com/doomvs