Dead Poetry

I’m not sure that the mathematical result of adding Vibeke Stene to Asgeir Mickelson is precisely equal to Dead Poetry. Sure, if you pick a verse somewhere at random, you’ll hear something a bit gothic and operatic from Stene, even sometimes accompanied by violins and melodic keys as she was back in her Tristania days, yet that would be missing the point. Veil Of Secrets is as much about soaring heartfelt vocals as it is about bruising riffs and big fucking sound. Mickelson’s experience in bands as diverse as Borknagar, Spiral Architect, and Ihsahn means that he’s perfectly equipped to handle the instruments all by himself, and he’s chosen to push his vocal partner rather than adapt to her former style. I’m not even sure I could say this is a purely gothic doom album, since the songs cover ground more reminiscent of Cathedral, Draconian, My Silent Wake, and even fellow Norwegians Funeral, occasionally just trying to be punishingly heavy, though never actually resorting to death metal to do so.

Key to the limited appeal of this style seems to be Veil Of Secrets’ decision to play slow all the time, so that 48 minutes spread out pretty vast and bleak, as I suppose the cover art intimates. The mournful riffs that Mickelson runs through tend to stick to melodic patterns, yet the brunt of the chord structures in ‘Fey’ and the even chunkier grooves in ‘Sear the Fallen’ really have more in common with Cianide or the old-school Peaceville doom death than anything that has previously included operatic vocals. Um…except Funeral’s Tragedies, hence the necessity of mentioning their name, regardless of that record’s exceptional bleakness. I appreciate how Dead Poetry tries to weave together those opposing doom strands, since heartbreak and despair always sound better to me with a few catchy riffs to cry your eyes out to in a more memorable fashion. It also forms a neat dynamic that prevents the sluggishess of the vocal parts (try singing melancholy opera to an 8/4 beat) becoming overbearing, seeing the duo switch focus from more moody to more physical sections.

However, I still believe that Veil Of Secrets have some things to think about after this debut, because I’m staggered that they didn’t manage to make the music more specific. By that I mean the creaking slow riffing and frequent presence of haunting violin melodies never leads to a particular atmosphere being created, just a general mood. I thought that the sound might evoke the feeling of wandering alone on clifftops around the fjords or of watching willow leaves drifting along the river in summer - that kind of locatable emotion - but I’ve got nothing to hang onto in that sense. Tantalizingly, the lyrics remain just out of grasp, which contributes somewhat, and even when Mickelson puts a little epic Candlemass touch into the guitars I feel more emotionally involved, while actually the violin pulls me further into the experience than the other instruments. Maybe that’s down to a slightly clean production, where very little of the musty smell of real decay and despair can be sensed, maybe it’s more about my inability to add associations to the album.

Despite this niggle, I hope that Veil Of Secrets will make more music in the near future, seeing as this first effort combines aspects of gothic and doom that haven’t often been together, crafting fine songs that can’t be called hooky but certainly have some memorable features. Putting ‘Bryd’ down the tracklist at number 6 was a fairly good ploy too, it representing the only real foray into proper mid-paced extremity and including some guest harsh vocals for good measure. Perhaps in that niche lies one solution to the problem with Dead Poetry, that the variety offered by vocal and stylistic trade-offs still has ground to be explored. I for one definitely want to see this duo have a second crack at a pretty cool idea.