Review by JD on February 8, 2009.

This amazing artistic yet almost sadistically heavy Greek band has named what it does as 'non-tempo music'. Their term is more than a little deceiving in every way, to the point that they were not accurate. What Universe217 actually are as a group is an artistic Ambient Doom Metal played to the very extreme edge of what that sort of term means.

What this all means for Universe217 is that if you took the members of Novembers Doom, Candlemass, and St. Vitus and fed them all huge doses of downers and made sure every band member was suicidally depressed while they collaborated on music... is exactly what Universe217 sounds like. It is both amazing to hear with its ambient yet crushingly heavy sounds, but the despondency that it is written with will send as shadow over one's heart and cascade them into the band's own hell.

Brooding melodies offset dark and rather ethereal vocals that sets the tone. Heavy guitars thunder through the near dirge like trance that Universe217 use to convey a sens of utter hopelessness and complete barrenness of ones soul. The lyrical picture is made up of sheer desolation, a dank dirty world that is made almost primordial as it seethes with a great sense of near evil melancholy .... as if pain, death and despair live so deep in the murk that no light of day can ever reaches through the gloom.

This album is a thing to behold and to listen to, as long as you are not prone to slipping into some dark and deep depressions states. Even if you are you could still listen to the album. Simply, fill your prescription at your shrink's office, make sure you have nothing sharp in the room, lock away your guns and make sure you don't have a coil of rope around... and then put this album in.

I usually do not listen to this type of Doom Metal personally... but I found myself drawn to it once I did. It the most scary thing I have ever heard to the point that I think it could traumatize Stephen King into ending up writing scripts for Barney the big purple dinosaur on PBS if he listened to this CD. It is brilliant, and people need to hear it at least once.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 9
Atmosphere: 9
Production: 9.5
Originality:9.5

Overall: 9 out of 10