• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5

Elliott’s Keep are a small Doom act from Texas that have flown well under the radar for four albums now, and if Vulnerant Omnes is anything to go by, I can see why. They call themselves Progressive Doom, but instead of anything trippy or exciting like later Elder or Pallbearer, they seem to mean it as writing songs with a lot of parts stapled together that don’t really go well together and fail to build tension or momentum throughout. There is some strong musicianship to be found here through tolling riffs and some standout bass lines, but it’s all in service to unfocused songs that end up going nowhere and sounding very similar to one another. That isn’t helped much by the fact the songs are all roughly the same pace plus or minus some faster sections with harsher vocals, and the vocals themselves are pensive and raw enough that they’d be pretty good if they weren’t trying to cram as many words into the vocal lines as possible to strangle whatever energy they’d otherwise give. There’s a Doom band capable of grand, epic music in here somewhere, I just wish they’d stop writing misguided songs that smother their ambitions and make them sound small.