Day: May 17, 2014

Pierre Laube’s solo project reaches its third album in two years and confirms the upward parabola that characterizes the work of the German musician since the beginning of this adventure. Attested by now permanently in the prestigious roster of Solitude, Pierre does not betray the basic coordinates that have characterized his death doom both in the debut The Ancient Path, and in the following In My Own Abyss but, on this occasion, the sound is allowed on several occasions melodic openings able to mitigate the claustrophobic effect that until yesterday was simultaneously trademark and partial limit. The guitar, in fact, lets itself go to passages able to mark the single tracks, just what was lacking in the previous works where instead a death matrix impact was privileged, undoubtedly effective but in the long run lacking the necessary change of gear. It’s not that Doomed have suddenly become disciples of Saturnus, mind you, the doom of the Teutonic one man band is always quite corrosive and devoid of easy solutions, but the raging aggressiveness of the recent past leaves more space to a guitar that transmits more bitterness than melancholy, in any case. The choice of opening the album with the voice of one of the symbolic singers of European melodic death doom, Pim Blankenstein of Officium Triste, denotes a greater softening of the sound, which in my opinion allows Doomed to make a decisive leap in quality. When Hope Disappears is in fact perhaps the best song written by Pierre in this two-year period, not only thanks to the vocal contribution of the guest (after all the German musician himself has a growl more than adequate) but, above all, for the presence of a guitar able to draw melodies sufficiently painful; something similar happens also in The Last Meal, where in this case the guest is the less known Andreas Kaufmann, and in the final What Remains, for a triptych of songs that shows the more melodic side of Doomed. The rest of Our Ruin Silhouettes settles on the levels and coordinates of previous works, but it’s clear the perception of a more defined and somehow more open writing work and it’s not to exclude that, having become Doomed, at least live, a band in all respects, Pierre has been positively affected even in the composition phase. Once again, therefore, we can only welcome with satisfaction a new release of the German musician who, without making too many proclamations, continues with Teutonic regularity his march towards the top of death doom.

2014 – Solitude Productions