Theatres Des Vampires – In Nomine Sanguinis
Theatres Des Vampires – In Nomine Sanguinis
Scarlet Records
Release Date: 19.11.21
Running Time: 40:24
Review by Dark Juan
3/10
Yes, I know. It is February 2022 and this is a review for a record that was released in November last year. There is a good reason for this. I was a massive fan of Italian vampire metallers Theatres Des Vampires for years and years in their early days, when Lord Vampyr was the head honcho and they played Melodic Black Metal. I jumped at the chance when I saw this album appear on the list at Ever Metal HQ, having remembered the dark joys of “The Vampire Chronicles” and then having contemplated reviewing “In Nomine Sanguinis” many times since. Frankly, I’m doing it now because I am sick of it clogging up my fucking review list. I have been somewhat afraid of looking at it because I loved the early incarnations of Theatres Des Vampires and I am bloody suspicious of what they have become, compared to the claret-craving Black Metal maniacs they were…
Oh.
It is exactly as I feared. Fuck.
It appears that the band have found CDs of every single Gothic cliché there is (plucked violins, harpsichords, mournful cellos, bellowing Gothic choirs) and sampled the fucking lot, and then dropped them liberally all over some really fucking generic industrial metal. Anyone who reads my bullshit regularly will know that I am a card carrying Sad Old Goff, and also that I am a rabid fan of industrial music. Theatres Des Vampires have melded them together, so you’d think I’d be all over this record like a bloodsucking, predatory gentleman of the night in a devastatingly elegant silk suit.
No.
This is too painful for words. I’m utterly destroyed. I don’t like Theatres Des Vampires anymore and this album is simply not good. I can’t get on with the singing of Sonya Scarlet, whose range goes from high-pitched to totally-fucks-with-bats’-sonar-and-makes-them-crash-into-trees with added screeching. She’d be a fucking brilliant countermeasure to ballistic missile submarines. I don’t like the arrangement of a single song, all of which are so utterly and boringly predictable I knew where the songs were going EXACTLY from the first bar and could confidently predict when the male/ female interplay vocal lines would come in (Track five ‘Lady Bathory’, fact fans!) I don’t like the production of the record, which is muddy as fuck apart from an omnipresent crash cymbal that cuts through everything and resounds annoyingly in my left ear throughout the ENTIRE fucking record. I didn’t enjoy the clear afterthought that was the guitar solo on ‘My Cold Heart’ (which, judging by the sound of it was recorded in a different studio by a rather more competent producer and then just slammed into the middle of the song without any fucking equalization or attempt to make it sound vaguely like the rest of the composition). The bass is too loud. The fret buzz on the bass makes me wonder whether the bass player is using wet spaghetti instead of strings. The drums aren’t loud enough. The vocals fade in and out of the mix like the producer kept wandering off for extended toilet breaks because he didn’t want to hear the music anymore either. I didn’t even enjoy the choir on the title track because it made Theatres Des Vampires sound like a Poundstretcher own brand version of Nightwish and I normally fucking adore Gothic choirs. Still, at least the cymbal moved into my right ear briefly, so thank Satan for small mercies…
It gets worse. ‘Golden Cage’ sounds like Deathstars with a female singer and added stabby gothic keys and is truly unpleasant to hear, Sonya Scarlet’s vocal being flat and uninspiring in the extreme. In fact, the whole feeling I get from the record is one of disinterest and music-by-the-numbers. Gothic music is supposed to have passion and raw emotion bleeding from every tortured pore. Theatres Des Vampires appear to have decided that squealing counts as emotion. Squealing is what pigs do on a honeymoon. Or teenagers on rollercoasters. Or excited young maids on “Downton Abbey” when they receive an unexpected gift from a rakish young bounder. ‘The Void Inside’ highlights another problem. Both the male and female vocalists are simply poor as fuck. I can’t put it any more succinctly.
The music itself is competently played and if you had let the likes of Paradise Lost or Type O Negative get hold of the songs and work them, you might have had fucking Imperial levels of gothic majesty. Instead you have tepid, turgid yet still pompous and overblown Industrial Goth Metal that has been done to death over the years. Theatres Des Vampires – how could you do this to me? They even have the utter fucking temerity to suggest, in their blurb, that fans of The Sisters Of Mercy would enjoy this record.
They really wouldn’t, and this one (the Gothfather, Andrew Eldritch is my hero, even if he is STILL refusing to admit the Sisters are the quintessential goth band) really doesn’t. At best, young teenage girls who think black lipstick, fishnets, bat shaped hair accessories, coffin shaped handbags, colossal boots, and Wednesday Addams dresses make them goths, might find something to enjoy in Theatres Des Vampires. Mainly through torturing their parents with it.
I am seated here in Dark Juan Terrace, trying desperately to find a redeeming quality to “In Nomine Sanguinis”. Honestly, the best I can come up with is that it has ended. Now, it is time for me to sort out the tinnitus that fucking cymbal has caused in my left ear.
I don’t want to write about Theatres Des Vampires any more. I’d rather listen to the Dread Lord Igor Egbert Brian Clown-Shoe Cleavage-Hoover snore and fart. Which, incidentally, is what I am doing right now.
Have a splendid evening, dear ladies, gentlemen and gentlepersons.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Il sistema brevettato di valutazione degli schizzi di sangue di Dark Juan) is barely registering and awards Theatres Des Vampires a deeply unsexy 3/10. If this record is supposed to exemplify the passion of being in the throes of adoration with vampires, I think I’d rather stick to building Airfix models in my kitchen, because, frankly, it’s more fun and you don’t even need to die.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Death In Venice
02. Endless Darkness
03. Christina
04. Bride Of Corinth
05. Lady Bathory
06. My Cold Heart
07. In Nomine Sanguinis
08. Golden Cage
09. The Void Inside
10. Till The Last Drop of Blood (A re-recording of a TDV classic that has been butchered beyond all recognition)
LINE-UP:
Sonya Scarlet – vocals
Zimon Lijoi – bass
Gabriel Valerio – drums
LINKS:
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