Doomed - Our Ruin Silhouettes (CD)

Review
Metal Descend
01.07.2014

Growled are the memoirs of a man who has tasted the dark underbelly of despair. One guitar is stately while the other is harmonic yet dissonant. This album has a trance-like feel allowing you to sink into those dark, doom-shrouded places without boring you to death by accident. “When Hope Disappears,” “In My Own Abyss,” “The Last Meal,” and “Revolt” are tracks of delicious gloominess.

Author: I.O. Kirkwood

Review
Transcending Obscurity

This is without a doubt one of the strongest death/doom releases of this year. Most bands keep it relatively straightforward, either in the Disembowelment vein or something similar to Winter if not the early UK doom trio-inspired music, but Doomed from Germany is rendering it atmospheric and adding exotic touches not unlike Runemagick. Take for instance In My Own Abyss which has haunting vocal patterns and a Middle Eastern touch – almost as if there’s a mass prayer being held before a sacrifice of some sort. Another dead ringer would be My Hand In Yours, reminiscent of Runemagick at its exotic doomy best. Both of these songs are the highlights of this album simply because the band is doing something slightly different than hordes of other bands out there. The rest of the songs hover around the same tempo, being more varied or perhaps less atmospheric and intriguing, reminiscent of Worship at times, Officium Triste too. It’s perhaps a coincidence that Pim Blankenstein of the latter band does guest vocals on the first song titled When Hope Disappears.

The band has a charm of its own. All its artworks are in similar colour tone but get progressively better and more expressive. The music too is like that, having shades of the same feeling or expression. It’s even comparable to Ophis at times, but there’s more of a hidden beauty with Doomed. With the death metal influences, the power and heaviness is there but somehow also the fragility of doom, evocative of the early UK doom bands. The pace is quite slow but bordering on funeral doom and not surpassing it. The result is fairly competent death/doom music that’s heavy enough for death metal and just about doomy enough to not drag down the proceedings completely, although that’s no affront to funeral doom, which usually employs more keyboards and goes for a different, thicker atmosphere. Doomed has managed to capture its essence and express it in this manner remarkably well.

But it’s when the band dabbles in more exotic and atmospheric realms that the music really shines. I keep returning to those exotic Runemagick-ish tracks since they offer something more and they're naturally more memorable as they stand out. Even otherwise, the album is extremely satisfying, competent in the way Doom:VS is, but I like to look for that something extra each time. While there might be great quality in the genre, it’s become repetitive and dull. Thankfully Doomed have managed to make sure the music is balanced with the right tempo and atmosphere and there are these beautiful haunting melodies and leads that jolt you right out of your complacency, however soothing. Interestingly, despite guest vocal appearances from Pim Blankenstein and Andreas Kaufmann (Hatespawn, Charon), Doomed is pretty much a one-man show. The talented person behind it is Pierre Laube. Hats off to the dude for crafting music with such emotions, poise and an inherent intensity. It could be categorized alongside greats like Officium Triste or Doom:VS for that matter, because the essence is similar only the expression is personal and dynamic in a sense. Real class here, gentlemen.

Author: Kunal Choksi

Review
Metal Base
17.05.2014

Solitude Productions is turning out to be a quality doom label from Russia. The new record from the German Doomed will hopefully further their climb as a band and also indirectly the label. The track featured My Hand in Yours exudes melody with funeral barges in place to checking your brain for anything sweet. The constant oscillation between the despondence and well more of it, with neatly hewn melodies to guide its path is something i’ve been waiting for.

Review
Masterful Magazine
6.5/10

Patrząc choćby na okładki Doomed, które układają się jakby w ciąg zdarzeń w jednej i tej samej scenografii, wydaje się, że Pierre Laube ma na ten swój jednoosobowy projekt jakiś nieszablonowy pomysł. Muzycznie jednak jest to tylko bardzo poprawny, choć zrobiony z nowoczesno-wyspiarskim polotem, klimatyczny doom z grubym growlem i death metalowymi ubrutalnieniami. Pierre ma niezłe pojęcie o budowaniu nastroju w takim graniu, potrafi wpleść aurę wzniosłości w typową dla gatunku flegmę, wie kiedy wprawić głośniki w druzgocące wibracje niskim basem i jak z surowego piaskowca powolnych gitar zbudować dostojną, gotycką budowlę oplecioną harmonicznymi flażoletami. Może nie odnosi wielkiego sukcesu na polu oryginalności, ale ortodoksyjni wielbiciele klasycznego, klimatycznego grania odnajdą tutaj większość swoich ulubionych klisz. W moim odczuciu część utworów jest jednak zbyt długa w stosunku do struktur i ilości pomysłów, na których zostały zbudowane i zawartość “Our Ruin Silhouettes” staje się czasami zbyt muląca. Są wyjątki, jak np. utwór “The Last Meal” z gościnnym udziałem Adreasa Kaufmanna (Hatespawn, Charon), gdzie pomysły, odpowiednio wyważone proporcje surowego ciężaru, szybszych, brutalniejszych partii i nastrojowych harmonii, i ogólnie, umiejętne zaangażowanie słuchacza w muzyczny scenariusz stawiają Doomed ponad średnią przeciętną w tym gatunku. Daleko od wybitności, ale nie każdy musi być pierwszym człowiekiem na Księżycu.

Review
Metal Rules
3.5/5

Doomed is hardly an inspired name – but as a descriptive moniker choice it can’t be faulted. And kudos to Pierre Laube who is a genuine one-man band. He does everything in Doomed - vocals, guitars, drums... and presumably the washing up after a tea break. He does have some help come live performances, which is fair enough really. The days of strapping the drum to your back are long gone.

Church bells and religious type chanting isn’t a particularly unique starting point for an album, but what is these days. Although having the first two tracks on an album begin in that self-same way suggests a theme, which doesn’t then continue, and in turn suggests a lack of intro ideas. Perhaps Laube used them all up in the body of the songs themselves for there certainly are flourishes to each track which offset the concrete block riffs - “My Hand In Yours” being one notable example.

As an album, Our Ruin Silhouettes is like the sea, a tide of doom ebbing and flowing - sometimes it comes in too far, too long though and as with a sandcastle, some of the finer details get washed away by the sheer weight of it all. None of these songs are short – six and a half minutes is as concise as its gets, and two near-on nine minuters bookend the album.

Aside from the time investment you need to be in the right headspace to fully immerse yourself in songs like “A Recurrent Dream” – these are slow moving beasts taking heavy steps. They’re taking you somewhere but you got to stick around for the whole ride.

In terms of low guttural vocals, none of Our Ruin Silhouettes is unremarkable. It’s not that they don’t suit that whole doom/death sound, but it’s solidly one-track in a many-track musical world, although “The Last Meal” is particularly harsh. If you like that sort of thing, and are familiar with the styling’s of the genre then you probably won’t care. But, see I really wanted to be pulled into that world but it's hard sometimes to know what's being said and in trying to figure it out the spell is broken.

For me that’s where Our Ruin Silhouettes falls down. Good music in any genre has a certain kind of magic, and doom in particular is a place where it can be woven thick. Our Ruin Silhouettes is a good album, that maybe even gets great come the closing trio, but it doesn’t always take the listener with it when it tries to fly.

Author: Kirsty Birkett-Stubbs