The master of mastering Jens Bogren, who has been involved with just about anybody who’s anybody is the melodic metal world and more, must have been on overtime for this substantial offering from the US melodic and death/doom metal band Vacant Eyes. 74 minutes long, this six-track epic is the band’s debut album bar an EP released in 2014. Apart from the Bogren connection, the “for fans of” column dragged me in: Daylight Dies, Opeth and Swallow the Sun. Now that’s potentially substantial.

The album starts with the epic “A Colorless Eternity”. Doomy and heavy, it swings forth melancholically for 17 minutes. As you’d expect of a track of this length, it passes through phases of heightening intensity and quieter stages. It’s a lofty piece but a journey whose path I felt I’d trodden on before. No pain, no gain and all that but for me this was a case of a lot of weight for little gain or progress. “A Timeless Vault” then starts ponderously. A few growly lines later, it plods on like someone staring into space. The artist behind this describes the album as a “collection of thoughts and perspective for those who share the dream of an alternate ending to existence”, which would be another way of putting it. A piano adds a mystifying classical air to this leaden piece. A guitar solo takes us in another direction before the world caves in, and comes crashing with the drums being played funereally and the growls intensifying. It stops and the tragedy becomes momentarily quiet and pensive as we find ourselves “staring into the face of death”. It plays out, but I wasn’t getting where we were or where we’d gone to in all this sadness. On it creeps with the ever heavy “Induced Desolation”. The track titles capture what Vacant Eyes are doing, I’ll give them that. “Induced Desolation” is like a monotonous slab. “Apparition of Existence” takes us into a discomforting alternative world but although the energy increases and power is released, that world remains grey and alien. My visualisation of this became no clearer as these substantial pieces came and disappeared. During the final piece “Into an Empty Being” we momentarily enter a Tubular Bells type cosmic world, but the essential fare is the same: heavy, doomy gloom. Midway through, there is a haunting voice but its presence is as enigmatic as all the rare interventions in this largely dull and monolithic work. The only mystery was where the comparison to Opeth might have come from.

I must say that I was expecting more after reading the publicity. “Somber Preclusion of Being” lives up to its title and is a solid and well produced heavy doom work with all too few uplifting moments and nothing special in the originality department.

(5/10 Andrew Doherty)

https://www.facebook.com/vacanteyesdoom

https://vacanteyesdoom.bandcamp.com/album/a-somber-preclusion-of-being