Centuries
Taedium Vitae
Southern Lord
Street: 08.06
Centuries = Tragedy + Wolfbrigade + Oathbreaker

Floridan Swedeath-ers play at misanthropy with latin song titles, stark imagery and the hum-drum casserole of D-beat, doom and crust topping most bearded blogger “best of” lists. Thing is, Taedium Vitae still underwhelms in virtually every sonic sense. Pointless atmospheric passages (meant to “give us a breather”) permeate its first half, too often obscuring a great heavy cut’s chance to keep on walloping. Not til track 7, “Grave Cordibus” (competently blending well-worn D-beat clattering with the acrid squall of later The Hope Conspiracy) do things pick up, and the record closes on a trio of vicious, yet marginally distinguishable cuts. It’s not lacking finite excellent moments (the sinewy looping riff near the end of “Servisse” or “Irrita”’s audio dopplegang-bang of Modern Life is War’s “First and Ellen” for example) but they’re too scant to justify the “taedium” comprising the record’s staid majority. –Dylan Chadwick