UMUR
"IIII - The Album of Labour" is the fourth full-length studio album by Swedish doom metal act Veni Domine. The album was released by Rivel Records in August 2004. It´s the successor to "Spiritual Wasteland" from 1998 and it features one lineup change since the predecessor as keyboard player Mattias Cederlund has been replaced by Mats Lidbrandt. The material on the album was long in the making and writing for the album began as far back as 1997 and the recordings started in the fall of 2000. I´m not sure if the album title is meant to reflect how much work the band had to put into the making of the album, or if it´s just coincidental, but the fact is, it´s an album which took a long time to write, record, and release.
Stylistically Veni Domine still sounds like a combination of the melodic and epic doom metal of Candlemass and the melodic and semi-progressive heavy/power metal of Queensrÿche. It´s impossible not to think of Geoff Tate when you hear Fredrik Ohlsson sing. His voice and delivery are very similar to Tate´s work with Queensrÿche, but Veni Domine are generally a much more heavy and doomy band, so they are by no means a Queensrÿche clone. Heavy power chord riffs and equally heavy drums, complimented by atmospheric keyboards, and the occasional lead guitar line or solo. You´ll notice right away how well playing Veni Domine are. These are high level musicians and Ohlsson is a worldclass singer.
While the material is well composed, the slow pace still means that the album sometimes feels at little long as it features eleven tracks and a total playing time of 56:38 minutes. More varied tempos and moods (this is epic and melancholic all the way through) could maybe have provided the album with the needed diversity. Every song on the album is a high quality composition, so there´s nothing wrong with the individual tracks. It´s the overall package of the album, which ends up a bit one-dimensional. "IIII - The Album of Labour" features a detailed, professional, and well sounding production job, so other than the feeling that most tracks use just about the same elements and therefore become a little formulaic, this is a good quality doom metal release from Veni Domine. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.