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