Metu Deorum

I feel like me and Torvus have a lot of things in common. For starters, we both like doom metal quite a lot, but were born after the bands that we like the most. However, these 3 chaps seem to be even younger than me, being millennials in the truest sense, seeing as they were born in or around the year 2000. More specifically, we both really like Maryland (not just the cookies), seeing as these Washington natives slowly trudge the same sort of damned path as The Obsessed and Saint Vitus, as well as later important local groups like Revelation, Internal Void, and Evoken. For those doomheads not down with the '90s Maryland sound, it mostly produced very traditional doom, played slowly and hopelessly for the main part, and featured much less extreme metal than its European counterpart. Where I feel that Torvus use their age to their advantage is in peering across the Atlantic and pinching some key elements from the British doom death groups as well, notably the very early work of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride, as well as pre-album Pyogenesis. Unusually, this debut Metu Deorum possesses a split quality of sounding lost in time like the Maryland classics, yet much more extreme like European death doom.

Now, that's pretty much what I would like more than anything else in the world, but sometimes you should be careful what you wish for. For starters, the early history of those bands I mentioned isn't shimmering, with rough productions, odd vocals, and inflexible pacing often causing problems. Torvum choosing to go that route means Metu Deorum sounds about 30 years old, bathed in the underground crypts of death metal recording and unrefined edges, guitar sticking out nastily at times on some screaming feedback, and drums rumbling around in the murk of bass like organized rats in the darkness. For the most part, the single guitar set-up works fine, but the soloing really needs some work, noodling aimlessly with poor tone at times, which bursts the atmospheric bubble that the grim riffing achieves. The vocals rarely deviate from a raw yelled growl, which is one instance of the lo-fi approach definitely working well.

I will admit that the obscurity of the production benefits the simplicity of Torvus's instrumental work. The pacing also helps, staying at that traditional slow Maryland lurch for much of the time and suddenly bubbling up like an angry ghoul to rush at the listener on songs like 'Tavrobolivm' and 'Libations (for the Observers)'. That kind of unpredictable extremity shows how well the trio have studied As the Flower Withers, alongside the pinched notes and lethargic misery of 'Brujo'. However, sometimes pace shifts from death metal assaults to more classic-sounding romps, such as that which closes the band-titled song. For what it's worth, it changes things up, but this album operates much better when nasty moods match the rotten sound. The album cover gives some notion of the ideal aesthetic: ancient, obscure, and monochrome.

Despite agreeing with most of the decisions that went into making this debut, I can't claim that the end product will receive repeat listens. Atmospherically, there's plenty to recommend, while the influences seem practically faultless, even some awkward Morbid Tales riffing seeing the light on closer 'Shedding', yet individual songs don't stand out very much, blurring into one long experience of subtle threats and danger. Partly, the length of the experience is itself to blame, Torvus laying down 72 minutes of music on Metu Deorum, which would be too much to cope with in most genres but certainly overburdens a grotty album of primal musicianship. Therefore, as much as I like the idea of what Torvus did here, I would probably have preferred them to take a similar route to My Dying Bride and Pyogenesis when they were starting out, concentrating their music into half hour EPs or an album with only a handful of tracks. Nevertheless, these Americans still produce the kind of uncanny, unsettling ambience they were aiming for.