The 11th Hour – Lacrima Mortis (2012)

Seems like the extremely talented Ed Warby still wants to sing and his (again) god-awful vocals adorn this release, but luckily the music is heaps better than on the band’s first release “Burden of Grief”. The mood in “Lacrima Mortis” is a bit darker thanks to the more ‘gothic’ elements introduced in this release as well as the deep growls of Pim Blankenstein Officium Triste. The riffing is also more dynamic and keeps the attention away from the horrible singing.

With the opening track “We All Die Alone”, The 11th Hour starts with a desolate piano section accompanied by violins that will make you drop anything else you are doing and focus on this release 100%. The riffs are majestic in the sense that they transfer those juicy depressive emotions we love about Doom Metal. Ignoring the crap-tastic clean vocals, this song is very powerful and melodic. The My Dying Bride-esque “Rain on Me” quickly follows and by this time you know that “Lacrima Mortis” will be one hell of an album.

“The Death of Life” and “Tears of the Bereaved” keep the My Dying Bride worship while still sounding original and dynamic. The growls are excellent and the occasional atmospheric keyboards make everything even more magical. Going a bit into Funeral Doom territories we have “Reunion Illusion”. After the 4:40 minute mark this song goes beyond awesome with an excellent ‘acoustic’ passage that is terribly ruined by clean vocals…. we seem to not be able to stop complaining about this, but we honestly think they are this terrible.

Our favorite tracks of the album have to be “Nothing But Pain” and “Bury Me” since they are both excellently crafted and very emotional. The aggressive vocals again shine through everything else, but some ripping clean guitars near the middle of “Bury Me” make this song even more enjoyable. If the band would provide a second CD with all the music and only harsh vocals, we would buy 50 copies of this release for our friends, but we have to settle for liking only 80% of this release since we really can’t stand the vocals but everything else is perfect.

Release: February 7th, 2012

Country: Netherlands