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Avernus
Sadness
(demo - 1994)
Four long tracks of My Dying Bride style doom with female vocals and much use of synths for effects and sorrow. The male vocals are strong death growls and the delivery is so angry at times, it seems more suited to a brutal death metal band than doom, but I got used to this fast and other people may prefer it this way. The simple female vocals are used very well as a soft contrasting effect, low and dreamy and complementing the male rage nicely. Guitars are very heavy mostly with oppressive distortions and the bass is clearly audible. My biggest two gripes with this are firstly, the fake synth violins and flutes - after being used to the beauty of the real instruments the ones here are painfully synthetic although I must admit they are effective. But all this would still not get in the way of a recommendation to buy if it were not for the songs themselves. Others have recommended this strongly but I found it somewhat boring. I found it lacking in hooks and sad beauty to sweep me off my feet, the overall effect after a while is one of droning heavy doom. The song does change its pattern often but the effect stays the same throughout. Very promising but not good enough.
Godlessness
(demo - 1995)
A big improvement over their previous demo. Almost everything in the above review applies here only this time there is a lot more usage of sad melodies. Melancholy keyboards have a much bigger role here, usually dominating the guitars with their sorrowful melody. Thankfully, the guitars are softer here allowing the song to 'sing' instead of drone heavily. Glimpses of Eastern sounding tunes that were on 'Sadness' are more evident here as well. A couple of sections are backed by clean male vocals with an annoying delivery that I didn't care for much but otherwise this is a superb demo and I'm looking forward to their full length.
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