Poema Arcanvs: Transient Chronicles

Poema Arcanvs (yes, I'm spelling it right) is from Chile, have been making music for twenty years and have five albums. I don't know how popular they are outside of their native country, though I do know that they've toured major parts of Europe in recent months. I haven't heard of them until I received their album and began to listen. Their music is best described as mellow doom death metal, but there are several additional components to the music that take it outside of those genres regularly. The result is often quite effective, if a little repetitive.

The tempo of the music on this album is consistently slow, mellow, and meditative. Elsewhere, I've described this kind of music as study metal, the kind of stuff that can be on while I'm reading or writing. This isn't meant as an insult, just a means of capturing the overall effect of the sound. The singer's voice is very rich and deep and lyrical at times. It also has a Gothic-like quality that I associate with Glenn Danzig, but it also reminds me of Eastern European folk metal singers. Simply put, he has a nice voice and moves smoothly between clean and dirty vocals. He is best when he's singing clean, though, because he does so with deep emotion.

The music is very heavy despite its general mellowness. The guitars sound great and even have some good riffs, though this music never reaches the beefy, groovy, crusty, qualities of other doom bands I've heard. I liked this album and think listeners who like doom metal with a little more vocal soul will appreciate it, too.

Track Listing:
1. Us, Those Half Dead
2. Stream of Debris
3. Fugitive
4. Inquilinos
5. Fading
6. Omniscient Opponent
7. Lambs
8. Default Song
9. Our Little Blood

Added: March 23rd 2013
Reviewer: Carl Sederholm
Score:
Related Link: Band Website
Hits: 1662
Language: english

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