The Doomed to Loneliness

This promo arrived in the same parcel as the Atra Hora one, and upon looking up the two bands (seeing as I’d never heard of either of the two bands) I found Sacratus to have released a follow-up to The DOOMed to loneliness on Darknagar Records; a label owned by members of both acts. Since there’s a new album by these guys I certainly hope it’s a big step up from this one, ‘cause this is really no good.

When English isn’t your native language I can most certainly understand your pronunciation’s not gonna be perfect (mine isn’t), but when a line like “my secret keeps in the shade” sounds like you're singing “my secret keeps me shaved” (a secret many women probably would like to get their hands on) it’s difficult to take it seriously. But besides the language barrier this album’s stricken with many other issues, and one is the insanely lengthy songs. Sure, ten tracks in 79 minutes isn’t that unusual for doom, I’ve definitely encountered much lengthier releases, but in Sacratus’ case they don’t have strong enough material to pull it off. The riffing’s really not that interesting, if there’s even a moment where it’s slightly interesting. It sounds like generic doom/death riffing; no hooks, twists, catchiness or originality. I don't mean to just piss all over these lads’ hard work, ‘cause I’m sure they’ve put in many hours writing the album, but the guitars and bass come out as a simple back-up to the keys and vocals. The riffing’s just there to lay the foundation, the drums are there for the sake of having drums, and it’s the keyboard and vocals that are the important parts of their sound.

Vocally the growl isn’t that bad, in fact I’d go as far as saying it’s pretty damn good and fitting for the genre and style, but the clean vocals are just abominable. As far as keys go, Madness is probably the best example of how it’s implemented and presented in such a way to really have a great interaction in between it and the riff-section. They do utilize it very well sometimes, but other times it just takes over and drowns everything else out. But as I said, Madness is a good example of how to do it properly, and it’s also the track with the most prominent riffing, and in fact probably the only time during the album that I even took notice of what was actually going on in that department.

The DOOMed to loneliness (a horrible title, I might add) is an extremely melodic album, taking the classic My Dying Bride, Anathema, Paradise Lost recipe and bastardize the hell out of with too much melody and bland, generic material. I’m really having trouble finding this interesting, and I tend to just zone out and think about other things instead of actually focusing on the task at hand; listening carefully to the music. I’ve heard this done so much better, with way more conviction, much more powerful material and interesting ideas. Sacratus just doesn’t hold its worth amongst the giants of the style.

Originally written for My Last Chapter