It is never a good sign to see an album and immediately cringe at the song lengths. I have enjoyed some colossal songs in my life, and even some albums with absurd runtimes, but seeing the exact combination of genre descriptor, band name, album cover and runtime made me expect the worst. The section of Death Doom most interested in Grime and Gloom (and the production choices that come with it) usually do not warrant their runtime, and it seems that Sickness Particles Gleam falls into the usual trappings of the genre at first. Opener “Vault Of Vision” takes its sweet time, with a considerable amount of whoosh completely unrelated to the song proper up front. The song works in a completely linear fashion, going from section to section without any sense of inherent structure to it beyond following the doctrine of “Long Equals Profound”. Many bands have the issue that, even when they try to escalate and develop their songs, they seem to be trapped in a general pace they cannot break out of and even when the band speeds up or slows down, the momentum and mood remains unchanged. This opener is a slog and, once again, doesn´t help overcome my biases in regards to what the genre is currently.
While I remain unsold on Sickness Particles Gleam as a whole, I must admit that the album gets a little better as it goes along. Even when Seraphic Entombment can´t break out of their own framework within a song, there is some slight variation and mood shift. Particularly the two shorter songs breathe some life into the album in how they seem faster and more riff oriented. The start/stop tremolo riff opening up “Carried By Claws” has a certain groove to it that a lot of the album is lacking and it even follows it up with some minimal sonic experimentation – without giving up the riff. These two shorter songs manage to speed up at times, as well, and make me wish the album would have done so more often and in a more purposeful manner. The glacial, almost Funeral Doom pace of most of the songs doesn´t do the band any good, as their guitar tone isn´t particularly thick or even that nice sounding and sounds much better whenever percussive, faster sections are happening. The album is also unfortunate structurally. As mentioned, the best tracks are in the middle, which is the worst spot for them to be. “Quivering Majesty” doesn´t particularly motivate to replay, ending on the same level of whoosh as the opener began. While this might be a coherent choice and could even be viewed as a nice way of tying the album together, it just reminds me of what I will get myself into if I were to hit play again.
