I had quite high hopes for ‘Negation of Life’, as a quick look at the band’s previous works suggested that it would be a melodic doom album with some bite to it. And sure enough, there are crunchy riffs aplenty to be found here. The band hail from Spain, and there’s a definite Mediterranean warmth and light lurking in their songs, contrasting nicely with the blunt force of the pounding rhythm guitar.
Things start out very promisingly with slow-burning intro track ‘Even a God Can Die’, a chunky, chugging, mid-paced beast full of mournful harmonies, simple, eminently headbangable riffing and hints of the choppy, clinical abrasiveness of Septic Flesh . ‘Skilled Nihilism’ sounds poppy and polished, with a spiraling Dark Tranquillity-esque melody wrapped around a wounderfully unpretentious heavy metal groove, whilst ‘Adversus Pugna Tenebras’ is similarly reliant on infectiously catchy chugging hooks and sorrowful leads, marching along in predictable but enjoyable fashion.
These more straightforward, poppier songs with their well-crafted melodies and undemanding yet wholly gratifying heavy metal riffs are the album’s main strength, as they are unaffected by the sometimes-lackluster songwriting that drags down some of the longer, less immediate tracks. The title track for example is lacking in spark, starting off strongly with Cure-esque clean chords and leaden riffs that seem to promise epic gothic doom to follow, but soon settling into formulaic plodding that struggles to justify its 8 minute runtime despite a solid drawn-out melodic solo. The uniformly monotone growled vocals don’t help either, sounding perfunctory and nothing more.
‘November Cries’ works better, starting with a gently meandering folksiness and repeating little three-note melody evocative of My Dying Bride’s ‘The Cry of Mankind’ before settling into a similarly gentle yet defiantly-upbeat melodic doom groove, slowly progressing and un-enveloping in a way that’s wonderfully bittersweet and sits somewhere between Insominum and Portugal’s Before the Rain. ‘Through a Raindrop’ and ‘Celestial’ are similarly rooted in the sorrowful Finnish melodic DM sound, sounding pleasant to the ear yet formulaic and lacking any of the kick of the opening tracks, whilst closer ‘Nulla Religio Solum Veritas’ has more impact, finally making good on that promise of some Mediterranean gothic doom proper, centering around a miserable, leaden-and-sprawling riff and gloomy chugging that would sound right at home on Before the Rain’s ‘One Day Less…’ album.
‘Negation of Life’ has quite a lot going for it. There’s no shortage of meaty riffs and beautiful melodies to draw you in, but the longer tracks tend to flounder about lacking direction, and the album drags considerably during the second half. It still makes for a pleasing and atmospheric listen, but with more varied vocals and stronger songwriting it could have been far better.
(6.5/10 Erich Zann)
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