Review by Carl on January 9, 2024.

An atmospheric doom/death metal album, I don't think I did one of those before. Although not my favorite genre in the world, I do appreciate some of the older works in the genre, take the early stuff of The Gathering or Celestial Season, for instance. And from now on, we can add the only full length by Maleficium to that short list as well, because this is actually some damn cool stuff.

Already from the opener "Downfall", we are introduced to all the elements the band uses to build their sound: the slowly forward plodding heavy parts in the vein of old Paradise Lost, sporadic female vocals supporting the gruff male grunts, keyboards to provide a morose atmosphere, and at their heaviest the band showcases a death/thrash metal angle reminding me of the midtempo stuff of early 90's Death and like-minded bands such as Pestilence or Chemical Breath. The tracks are constructed in a well thought out manner, managing to combine atmosphere with aggression and heavy slow sections, firmly held together by a clear and balanced production. One thing that immediately struck me, was that the guitar leads are excellent, clearly pointing out the death metal background of some of the members, making for a valuable addition to the band's already rich sound. It will come as no surprise that the execution of the music is well above the average here, in the rougher parts even being on the same level as Pestilence, Atheist and Death at their 90's peak. With this formula firmly in hand, the band work themselves through their debut album in admirable fashion, keeping the attention focused from the beginning of the album, all the way through to the closing ethereal instrumental miniature "Memorare".

Although this is a good offering of atmospheric doom/death, it's not all puppies, rainbows and lollipops, as I do want to point out some things that didn't sit that well with me. The small goth rock part in "Disillusion" wasn't really necessary for me, but isn't such a problem seen in the whole of the song, but in a track like "Hydrogen" the band is playing around with a heavy riff which the drummer underpins with a peculiar, kinda proggy pattern, which gives the impression as if the guitars are detached from the percussion, making them sound as if they are floating above the rhythm section. And I don't know what the female vocalist is doing in the track "The Irreversable Solution", but she veers off just that bit too far into Björk territory for my taste.

The band never recorded a second album, so I'm curious about if they had continued, what their next step would have been. This debut album certainly made a promise it unfortunately never fulfilled, and that's a bit of a shame, really. And the fact that in Maleficium's place we got something like Within Temptation, that's is a definite shame, for sure.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Review by Vladimir on November 1, 2023.

Alright folks, it’s time to learn history while listening to some melodic death metal, because the topic of this review will be a Czech melodic death metal band Oblivium Regnum and their self-released debut EP Zrádce, released on February 1st 2023. 

As the opening track 'Břetislav A Jitka' begins, we are welcomed with an epic gregorian chant that lasts for about a minute and a half, until it finally kicks in with melodic death metal. From then on, we receive a plenty of awesome chugging riffs, melodies, epic choirs, thrashing drum beats, harsh guttural vocals during verses and symphonic female vocals during choruses. The later half of the song is backed up by a wonderful guitar solo which adds more to the musical emotions that were already conveyed with the riffs, melodies and female vocals. The rest of the EP is more or less oriented on pure aggression with growling vocals, death-thrashing and tremolo picking riffs, with either mid-tempo drumming or thrash beats, apart from the final track 'Poslední Bitva' which has a touch of symphonic elements like epic choirs and violins. The songwriting is simplistic and it heavily relies on a straightforward melodic death metal approach, aside from the first track which was far more dynamic and rich in terms of execution with the addition of epic choirs and female vocals. Every song on its own has a very solid execution and they all manage to stand on their own without repeating the same formula. Where I think this EP succeeds is those small bits where the riffs, melodies, solos manage to express emotions of melancholy, which are evident on tracks 'Břetislav A Jitka' and 'Poslední Bitva'. Something that I really wanted to point out is how the album cover feels almost nostalgic in so many ways, reminding me of main menus in medieval RPG and RTS games in the golden era from early to mid 2000s. Everytime I looked at it, I couldn’t help but think how it conceptually and graphically resembles something from classic video games like Gothic, Dragon Age: Origins or even Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos. I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but it certainly does get an extra point for hitting that spot. The overall sound production to me personally feels a bit thin, dry and a tad bit unpolished, and it sounds more like a demo recording from a band in the early 2000s (just like the album cover). 

Even though the sound production is the weak point of this release, I still consider Zrádce quite enjoyable for its total of 24 and a half minutes of length. Despite its single flaw, in the end it turned out to be a worthy listen from start to finish. I hope that Oblivium Regnum are going to work on a full-length album which will surpass all the efforts they put into this EP and make sure that fans enjoy it even more. 

Rating: 7.4 out of 10