Exitium Sui’s blackness moves forward.
After two amazing EPs in 2020, E.S. (all instruments/vocals, Humanitas Error Est, I Am All Wounds, Lebenssucht, Veils of Fog, ex-Deadspace, ex-Cancer) offers us Ad Personam, its first full-length, that is released through Naturmacht Production.
Wonderfully illustrated by S Caedes (I Am All Wounds, Lebenssucht, Throne ov Shiva, Humanitas Error Est), Exitium Sui’s music is at the central point between Black, Doom and Death Metal. We understand this intense blackness since Eviscerate My Withered Soul and its weighing introduction. Percussions accompany this dissonant riff, then this seizing mixing strikes. Doom Metal languor meets cavernous howlings and sharp leads. This melancholic melody leads us to The Long Return To Nothing, a majestic and frightening song. Orchestrations that are added to this this already impressive rhythmic never cease to reinforce themselves, picking into DSBM from time to time, then the final part decreases pressure. Into The Conflagration, the next song, crushes us since the beginning. Harmonics and orchestrations give this oppressive composition a special taste, while staying in these impenetrable darkness.
Tragedy IN D Minor begins with keyboards, then a soft and melancholic piano. If we feel that the melancholic and dark side remains, all the strength of the rhythmic falls upon us. Funeral Doom influences are clearly observable, mainly with those impressive howlings, but other touches add themselves to the long composition, like some clean voice made by Portia Gebauer, a very Black Metal dissonance, and above all this feeling of the end of the world before a heady final part. Nothing Left To Give, a short piano interlude, allows us a moment of softness with this airy sound. Blackness comes back for Which Fate Is Ours To Come, the last song. Whether the first part of the song wears some kind of unhealthy softness, the song’s intensity increases, before letting us on a vocal duo with insane contrast. Then the burning flame fades away, and nothingness is ours.
Exitium Sui always express itself between intensity and melancholy. But Ad Personam is more than a melting between Black, Death and Doom. It is the true essence of despair, the embodiment of oppression and sadness’ personnification.
95/100
