Comatose Vigil
Not a Gleam of Hope

As it often happens to me, I discovered this group from Russia purely by chance; as soon as I listened to the first song, I knew I had made a great discovery. I won't go into how much effort it took to get it directly from its country of origin, only to find it among the shelves of a store downtown, otherwise I risk having another hysterical fit. What matters is that I sweated to get it and I never regretted the long wait nor the various hysterical fits.

The proposal of these gentlemen is a Finely crafted Funeral Doom that easily challenges sacred monsters of the genre such as Evoken and Esoteric; considering that they are considered the best in the field by me, you can imagine the value of "Not A Gleam Of Hope" (as always, a very reassuring title). Although I mentioned these two bands, perhaps the ones whose sound our artists most closely resemble, the proposal of the Russians goes much further and proves to be in a sense much more modern. The space reserved for the guitars, very pronounced in the groups I mentioned, is drastically reduced in this album, where instead the keyboard plays the main role. Clearly, since it's still Funeral Doom, this statement of mine should be taken with a grain of salt and shouldn't make you expect a work all Synth and bordering on Ambient.

The songs, as per tradition, are very long (over ten minutes) and therefore, although there are only four, the duration of the album is quite substantial. I will confess right from the start that the reason why this work does not receive the highest score is precisely the excessive length of the songs, that is to say, it is the same reason why I would never give a top score to a Funeral Doom album. It is, in fact, a common fault among artists belonging to this trend to compose pieces so long that they end up repeating the same rounds ad nauseam or, as more often happens, to intersperse truly inspired Riffs with others that are authentic Filler. "Not A Gleam Of Hope" is no exception and, unfortunately, alternates truly astonishing parts with others that are decidedly weak and dragged out.

Returning to the proposal of the Russian trio, I must admit that I have rarely heard songs so well made: the initial part of "Suicide Grotesque" is enough to understand what I am referring to. In a few minutes, you are thrown into a labyrinth of despair and suffering from which there is no way out other than the dissolution of the body. In other words, what every Funeral Doom album wants to communicate: death as an escape from the anguish of life. I know that, as always, controversies will now begin about the aberration that this entails, how unnatural it is to try to eliminate the spirit of self-preservation and how dangerous/in bad faith the messages conveyed by this musical genre are. Life is beautiful, in short. Perhaps I should make an appeal to young Italians, in a "Ciampino" style, saying that they can make it, that happiness is within reach and that we must love one another. But this is the review of Comatose Vigil and not of Gianni Morandi: if you are optimists or simply not pessimists, this stuff is not for you.

The reality painted by Comatose Vigil is dark, hostile, invincible: if other works of the same genre arouse nihilism as a first emotion, "Not A Gleam Of Hope" depresses. As is obvious, these are not the painful and heartbreaking melodies of Depressive Black, but rather mortifying photographs of failures. It is not lost happiness nor exaggerated self-harm, but a serenity made unreachable by the pains of existence, a chronic torture that makes every memory and every hope vain. This album is not a threat; the threat is already reality. The keyboards, more serious than ever, are the expressive medium of this music with strong tragic hues: no happy ending, indeed, no ending at all. Pain is bearable if an end can be glimpsed in it. Instead, one is condemned to endure, powerless, the ruthless onslaught of life.

Musically speaking, there isn't much to say; the greatest skill in a genre like this is not to be sought in instrumental technique but in the ability to write convincing pieces, and I believe I have left no doubts. As I have already said, the arrangements are the strong point of this CD: beside mammoth guitars, ethereal yet not lightweight keyboards sketch nightmare images, a seal on very slow tempos in full Funeral Doom style.

The voice, clearly effected, is a growl that has nothing human left and fits perfectly with the soundscape laid out by the other members.

I believe that, approaching with due caution, the lyrics can also be very interesting and certainly represent an adequate complement to a work of this type.

I don't think there's much more to say about an album that, published in a year when Funeral Doom was already quite grown (2004), manages to outshine the much more famous competition: if you also consider that at the time they were debutants (their second work, "Narcosis," has recently been released) and that they come from a country only recently populated by Metal bands, you will understand the talent of Comatose Vigil. Funeral Doom masterpiece.