Rigor Sardonicous

Vallis Ex Umbra De Mortuus

Paragon Records 2008

Dwelling in the oppressive darkness somewhere between the slow denseness of Thergothon and the cold unfeeling purity of Winter exists New York's latest doom overlords, Rigor Sardonicus.  A thick and static laden guitar haze casts up a droning wall of impenetrable fear which forms the core sound of Rigor Sardonicus.  There is no room for emotion or hope within the rumbling riffs on Rigor Sardonicus' fifth full-length album, except for perhaps on the medieval folk styled intro of Mane De Maeroris.  Silens Somnium stoically marches into oblivion leaving a a trail of still and lifeless corpses within its wake.  Meanwhile Laudare Apocalypsis is propelled by awkward beats and sparse bass lines.  I hear echoes of Winter bludgeon forth from Prophecies I - Preapocaylyptia.  While on Agony it is more of a tempo that calls to mind Thergothon after they have been stripped of all their mournful melodies.  This characteristic though sometimes makes it hard to differentiate between songs because they are all similar in their plodding and emotionless approach.  All the rest of the tracks are as hard and unsympathetic as a slab of granite on a winter's day.  Joseph's deep gurgling vocals add to the stone-hard atmosphere of the album, showing no emotion and varying themselves not at all.  At times they remind me of vocals one might encounter on a pathological grind album.  On Vallis Ex Umbra De Mortuus, Rigor Sardonicus have developed a style of doom metal that is somewhat akin to tectonic plates slowly grinding against one another.  The songs are hard,  rumbling, and dismally slow in a manner that shuns life and instills lethargic despair.