The Vein - Perdition’s Cold Embrace

THE VEIN - Perdition’s Cold Embrace (ANCIENT DARKNESS - CD 2014)

The Vein is another band from Denmark, which I had a pleasure to listen to, thanks to the mighty Ancient Darkness Productions. I must say that this is awesome that this label released some very good bands (not all, but most of them is really great, in my opinion!) and almost each sounds different. So, recently I listened to Wolfslair’s harsh black metal and Deiquisitor’s amazing massive, brutal death metal… and now The Vein, who’re killer doom metal act! Maybe I should know them already, as they’ve released one CD before, “Scouring the Wreckage of Time” and have some active Danish musicians in the line up (from bands like Altar of Oblivion, Church Bizarre, Victimizer or ex-Undergang)… But no, never heard of them, but now I have “Perdition's Cold Embrace” and it is a very pleasant surprise and damn good EP!

Song, which for me stands out the most from “Perdition's Cold Embrace” is the excellent cover version of “Alter the Sepulture”. Yes, I know it’s just a cover, but The Vein really arranged and performed this song perfectly, in my opinion. Not only they extended it to over seven minutes, but stylistically it’s maybe closer to the “Rebellion” EP version of this song, with the keyboards, great dark feeling and with excellent sound quality, etc… all in all, a very good performance on this legendary and so brilliant anthem! I just love that dark atmosphere and killer, memorable riffs in it!

But cover is a cover, even when perfectly executed, it’s never gonna be your own composition. On “Perdition’s Cold Embrace” The Vein offers two tracks (plus a short instrumental song for the end of the EP)… And this is excellent, quite varied doomy stuff, where they successfully are mixing the grim and cold doom with the death metal influence, but generally it is very much focused on the dark, sorrowful atmosphere. The Vein music is quite heavy, mostly slow paced, for sure it is also very melodic, but not in that infantile or sugary way. The always present keyboards are just very good here, as they underline the atmospheric side of this music, just as it’s most preferred. They don’t stand above the guitars. And song like “Rise from the Abyss and Rejoice” is simply excellent. Yes, it’s melodic, it’s slow and melancholic, but never boring… the vocals are harsh, but there’re even some clean vocals, which fit great and make the whole song even more memorable. It’s seven minutes long track, perfectly balanced between the heaviness and harmonious, atmospheric side. And “Controlling to Enslave” is even heavier, more epic… I don’t know many bands in this style of music, so to compare The Vein to other bands is difficult, but maybe “Controlling…” is close to such bands like Novembers Doom, from their early albums? It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that this EP is just damn nice stuff and I enjoyed it fully. I may be listening to such music very sporadically, but some such bands I like a lot… and The Vein is one of them!

Standout track: “After the Sepulture”, “Rise from the Abyss and Rejoice”

Final rate: 78/100