Saturnus
Veronika Decides To Die
7
Synopsis:
And I thought Draconian and Officium Triste were a bunch of miserable bastards...
Review:
Denmark’s Saturnus have delivered one of the year's finest doom records. Not stoner, fucking fuzzed out doom rock, but wrist slicing, somberly melodic and depressively beautiful doom as delivered by the two bands mentioned above as well as the likes of Swallow the Sun, Insomnium, Slumber and Shape of Despair. In fact, Saturnus sound like they should be from Finland.
With thick, melancholy riffs with rending layers of harmony, heavy hearted piano tinkering and deep mournful growls and clean vocals, Saturnus is a classic example of the sound that bands like My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost and Celestial Season started over a decade ago.
Opening with apt piano laced despair, “I Long” sets the woeful mood out of the gate with one of the album's best tracks, an utterly draining main riff and despondent vocals and its mid song orchestral reprieve is just dismally hypnotic. From there the band has a high standard to keep, but manages to keep it respectable at least; “Pretend” is the track that instantly reminds me of Celestial Season’s Solar Lovers with its slightly more up tempo pace while “Rain Wash Me” and its mournful, continual background notes reminds me of My Dying Brides' “From Darkest Skies”. “Embraced by Darkness” reeks of Draconian’s recent effort - not too bad for band name dropping quality if you ask me. As with most albums of this type there’s plenty of overly drawn out dramatics and vast segues of introspective misery that drag on a bit and here, the weepy “All Alone” serves that purpose while the chunky gait of “To The Dreams”and “Murky Waters” deliver some offsetting heft.
Despite the quality of the album though - there is a glaring issue with the production; the guitars aren’t quit as full as the bass and drums, thus when a riff peaks, it's pretty underwhelming and the vocal miss is way off with Thomas Jensen’s sullen clean croon being deafening within the overall mix of things.
Still, that does not stop Veronika Decides to Die from being a high quality, conceptual funeral doom album that delivers sadness in spades and adds to Firebox's fine catalog.
