We are most honored today to premiere a song from Officium Triste‘s new album Hortus Venenum (which translates to “Poison Garden”). Few bands born in the obscure realms of doom/death metal have managed to live for 30 years, but this Dutch band have, and not merely whispering on life support but somehow gaining even greater strength and resilience of spirit on this, their eighth album overall.
Adorned with a magnificent Paolo Girardi painting, the album will be released by Transcending Obscurity Records on September 6th. It includes eight songs, beginning with two of the three shorter tracks on the record (relatively speaking). Those two have previously premiered, and what we have for you today is the third one in the running order. More expansive than the first two, its name is “Anna’s Woe“.
Here, Officium Triste teach us once again how to find beauty in sorrow, and grandeur in torment. They do this by creating contrasts between immensity and delicacy, between monstrous heaviness and sensations as fragile and evanescent as petals falling from flowers in their death. They do this with melodies that find the cracks in our hearts and open them.
In the first moments, synths ethereally shimmer and the reverberations of the lead guitar moan as if crouched in deep grief, head down and hands on knees, unable to rise. Piano keys poignantly ring, and the drums cleverly create vivid bursts and somersaults when they might have merely made a funeral march. Monstrosity takes the shape of Pim Blankenstein‘s abyssal roars coated in grit and the low gritty whine of a dismal riff.
The music also soars and expands, tragically shining in the higher elevations as the vocals elevate too, their serrated torment becoming palpable. Momentous jolts and thunderous booms ensue as the keys elegantly waltz above heaving undercurrents and a strummed guitar wistfully muses. Picking up the melody, an electric guitar solo casts its own engaging but haunting spell.
There’s no mistaking the beauty in the song — it’s truly gorgeous music — but there’s also no mistaking the incurable loss, the terrible regret, the fervent yearning, that inhabit the song’s emotional core and reach out from beneath its staggering weight and towering might.
LINE-UP:
Martin Kwakernaak – Synths
Niels Jordaan – Drums
William van Dijk – Rhythm guitars
Pim Blankenstein – Vocals
Gerard de Jong – Lead guitars
Theo Plaisier – Bass
Transcending Obscurity is rightly proud to be releasing Hortus Venenum, calling it “another masterpiece from this band that only seems to get better with age.” They recommend it for fans of Saturnus, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, Draconian, Swallow The Sun, and November’s Doom, but really, at this point all they really need to do is recommend it for fans of Officium Triste. 🙂
It will be a lavish release in many formats, accompanied by apparel and other merch that will allow you to show off Paolo Girardi‘s painting. You can check out the offerings via the links below. Also below you’ll find those two opening songs from the album we mentioned above — “Behind Closed Doors” and “My Poison Garden“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://officiumtristedoom.bandcamp.com/album/hortus-venenum
http://transcendingobscurity.aisamerch.com/
http://eu.tometal.com/
OFFICIUM TRISTE:
http://facebook.com/officiumtriste