Locus Amoenus started as a Blackened Doom Metal project and has been around for nearly a decade. As the years decayed, the project withered into a solo-project of Misaer, whom some might know from his work in Förtvivlan or Gestalte (live). Locus Amoenus then gradually slipped into Blackened Funeral Doom Metal territory. It’s been almost two years since the last release, which is this EP ‘‘t Gloem Heil’. The self-released EP contains two new tracks and a live recording and spans over 34 minutes.
The two new tracks are, of course, the focal point of this release. Both crawl by in utterly slow pace, with each track exceeding the 10 minute mark. Locus Amoenus succeed somewhat in preventing their songs becoming too tiring. Mostly by adding dynamics in the arrangements, following rise-fall-rise-fall patterns to keep the attention. It’s a proven trick that hardly ever fails. However, what I feel the tracks lacks are severe tempo changes. The awfully slow pace is hardly ever broken. The only reason I see fit to call Locus Amoenus Blackened Funeral Doom Metal is due to most riffs being played in the Black Metal tremolo style over Funeral Doom style drums. A welcome surprise would be to include some climaxing sections more akin to (slow) Black Metal standards. But I guess that would be outside of the focus of this project.
The live track ‘Thus was it written…’ from their debut ‘Sic Erat Scriptum’ is a nice bonus to end this EP. Its recording quality is sufficient and pretty clear, albeit it a bit hollow sounding. Stylistically the song is pretty close to the studio tracks, thus it hinders the flow little. Besides, it’s pretty hard for a band that relies heavily on atmosphere to recreate their compositions at a gig, but judging from this recording they pulled it off rather well.
So, it’s been two years since ‘’t Gloem Heil’ was released and nothing has surfaced from Locus Amoenus since. Will there ever be a follow up? A third full-length maybe? Untill then this EP will satisfy the needs for every Doom Metal fan who likes his music slow, grim and with only the slightest hint of Black Metal.
