#vacivus

Vacivus - Temple Of The Abyss (Profound Lore Records, 2017)

Vacivus - Annihilism (Profound Lore Records, 2019)

Vacivus from Sunderland released their second full-length album (Temple of the Abyss), and their first for Profound Lore, back in 2017, which somehow slipped by me that year, but I have since caught up to see what they were all about in preparation for this album here. Hearing that album, I could see what drew them and Profound Lore to one another. The band definitely exude that darkly religious vibe in their very rumbly, sludgy form of death metal, which is very much on brand for Profound Lore. However, I wasn’t surprised after hearing it that I hadn’t caught wind of it the year it was released; the band certainly had their aesthetic down, but they depended heavily upon it and their brutish instrumental/production strength to carry them through clunky and uncertain compositions. Naturally, I hoped that the band would improve on that front on Annihilism here. And it is a more versatile offering in that department than its predecessor, though not by much. The band still make the aesthetic of their cavernous, doomy, seven-stringed death metal the main attraction, and perform it well they definitely do. It’s just not the most groundbreaking death metal out there, and there are plenty of other acts out there as well who direct similar stylistic efforts into more refined compositions. And this isn’t to say that Vacivus’ songwriting is dull or without dynamic, it’s just rather homogenous from track to track, and most often pretty directionless, which can be totally fine, as it is in their case with the reliable howl and rumble of the instruments muscling through the relatively short run time. It’s not as much progress as I was hoping for, but it is a solid continuation of the engulfing style that works for them and many other bands in their field. They may not be doing it the most creatively, but they do still show promise.