Vacant Eyes – A Somber Preclusion of Being (Turgid Funeral Doom)
Oh I fooled you with the subtitle of this review lol. Hey, since Vacant Eyes were being wordy, I figured I’d be wordy, even though what our subtitle today implies is their wordiness is a defect. That’s just like a joke man. In fact, it’s all in good praise. A Somber Preclusion of Being wanted to be deep, and it succeeds in perfect regard. From the faceless entity on the cover in a vast, foggy forest, you are welcomed into a tightly packed, but never bursting, symphonic funeral doom of the best sort. I’m rather surprised this wasn’t picked up by a label for a release, but maybe Vacant Eyes didn’t want to bother. That would be my only assumption, because it would be impossible to let this one slip by if you had any brains, and money.
A Somber Preclusion of Being proves what I’ve said many times about funeral doom. Quick summary: do it slow and symphonic. Now more details; just slow and the riffs grow weary, too much symphonic and it leans heavily towards trad Goth stereotypes. Vacant Eyes have taken my suggestions to a fruitful level even though they’ve never heard of me until now. They’re masters at the slow, the crush, the tomb roars, and so forth, but they also know when to move more somberly, and, occasionally, how to do it clean, without relying on mere force, allowing the synth full breadth. It’s a shame a big label didn’t pick it up, but maybe they didn’t care, and we like it unexposed around here anyway.
Vacant Eyes – A Somber Preclusion of Being
Self-Released
Cover Art: Kishor Haulenbeek
4.7 / 5
