For this pilot project death doom from Australia is just one person -

but what? Terry Vainoras known connoisseurs of extreme scenes his

significant contribution to the work of such teams as Cryptal

Darkness, The Eternal and Insomnius Dei. Tired of genre limitations

Terry came to the creation of a solo project and is now entitled

Subterranean Disposition shows something that can be described as

experimental or, why not, the intellectual death doom.

Disclose all its aces Terry clearly not in a hurry, and for a detailed

perception of his debut work will need patience, built up over the

years listening to doom-opus, as though part of the album and limited

only five tracks, with gusto by the time they sound stretches from

nine to fourteen minutes. Being beyond trite, but still attractive to

novices formula "Angels and Demons", Mr Vainoras first track "Between

Apes and Angels" determines the place of modern man, vesting this

unsightly image of the musical fabric, woven of dissonance and

gravity. The first song sounds harsh, hard, black as death sentence,

however, it has not got any innovative elements - it's a slow, heavy

death doom with a few brief respite left on the formation of the

atmosphere and brutal attacks, during which the growl becomes more

brutal tones . With them, in fact, begins the second, one of the most

interesting tracks on the album - "Prolong This Agony". Aggressive,

close to the pace sladzhevomu somehow just replaced acoustic passage

in which the microphone is a soloist with the gentle jazz vocals. Her

role in this song because of the length could be called a cameo, but

feels - it plays a major role, especially because such an unusual

shift unexpectedly elegantly fits into the structure of the song. In

the "Seven Sisters of Sleep" Terry again relies on alternating

distorted brutal pressure and gloomy weather inserts, but the

culmination of songs on a plan is more progressive, the second part of

the track, typical representatives of extreme post-half stage. The

same can be said about the very long (hey, who is to be the longest?)

Track album "Most Subtle of Storms": about fifteen minutes by

different voices (and in a whisper, and a clear voice, and feral

growl) accompanies his avant-garde search while in the case does not

come saxophone, the first sounds that proclaim the beginning of a

small trip-hop deviations from the leading, most post'ovoy than

doom'ovoy, themes. And this is a little bit different feel and a

different, more elegant, dynamic, experience which slightly spoils the

prolonged game with "sounds of nature" - the surf pulls final,

acoustic, some songs when they could be safely switched. The final

song "Wailing My Keen" can be described as typical of the material

Subterranean Disposition: frequent changes of pace, sometimes

non-standard design for death doom melody that at times, again close

to the post-rhythms, short batch of female vocals and many exciting

atmosphere of its decisions.

Subterranean Disposition - is not just about musical horizons, but

also reflection on human nature and its anomalies, as a result, Terry

took an important place in their songs, the texts - a curious and deep

enough for the genre. Describing his music, the author operates with

such constants as "dissonance, the atmosphere, dynamic, heavy,

melodic," and you can safely rely on this definition. In essence it is

far from the familiar to the standards slow death doom, in which you

can really hear if not radical, but sometimes fresh experiments by

which from time to time have a desire pereslushat this or that song.

In such cases, when I come across a decent, like this, the material, I

want to finish the review words of hope about the release of the

project. I will not change this habit: it is interesting that the next

time bring us Subterranean Disposition.

What I nablijft in this project is the beautiful doom atmosphere that a lot of times is offered and where it is produced gradually pounded with whirring grunts and dragging guitars. A sense plate, but perhaps a little dry and unsalted thrown into the mix and I feel with too much of the same, although the riffing always something slightly different forms. At times it even makes Terry quite thorough with the oppressive and enigmatic notes on the doom haze that your awareness is The Most Subtle of Storms . Halfway include that song make you some diversity in the stilval and varied vocal approach, though providing the female vocals on a few other songs also a nice effect. Something Subterranean Disposition further their own direction with it should go up, because it is definitely one of the highlights on this atmospheric doom sentiment. Just lovely is it when that occurs sax!

Hopefully Terry continue with that stuff in the experimental line of The Most Subtle of Storms further drag, but actually the central atmosphere of this debut best to appreciate. It's a pretty doom project become incrementally from your lazy chair to follow. It has some sophistication and variety, but one story for sure. I look forward to the sequel.

The forthcoming self titled “Subterranean Disposition” album is a interesting new release, with a little bit of old-school flavor and it will be released in in October by www.hypnoticdirgerecords.com

The album has 5 songs, all of them in the near of 10 minutes playing time and it is a combination of some doom metal from the 90′s, especially the British death/doom metal scene, modern sludge elements, some kind of hardcore passages and some complex songwriting.

Between Apes and Angels, the first song on the album has a chaotic start, the disturbing screams of the apes are a preface of what’s next, chaos, slow oppressive riffs and atmosphere, no sign of angelic scenes. There are some parts in this song that remind me of Graveyard Dirt – on the melodic part and My Dying Bride on the clean vocals used throughout the song.

Prolong this Agony is a little bit more experimental, there is a small riff at the start that creates a calm and melancholic mood, somewhat similar to Ahab’s Oath, but this is just for a couple of seconds, the song continues with hectic sludge doom passages, some kind of hardcore vocals and some female vocals. Too much? Maybe.

All the elements that have inspired Terry Vainoras in this album can be heard in the 4th song, The Most Subtle of Storms, a song that has the classical doom elements, the modern sludge approach, an experimental jazzy saxophone moment and different kind of vocal types, a mix of all what you can hear in this album.

By the looks of it, Subterranean Disposition is an album that tries to hard to make an impact. Of course, the quality is good, you can hear that there is a lot of experience, but for my conservatoire tastes, I think that there are some parts that are a little bit overworked. Well, this can also be a good thing, just follow the links, take a listen and see by yourself.

Subterranean Disposition first reached the public eye (ear?) quite a few months ago  with “The Most Subtle of Storms” appearing on Soundcloud, with the band being totally unknown. How I even stumbled across it is a mystery, but I was captivated for all fourteen minutes and fifty seconds of it. Since then, the one-man band has signed to Hypnotic Dirge Records and released the full album.

The one man behind Subterranean Disposition is Terry Vainoras, who you may know from Cryptal Darkness, The Eternal and Insomnius Dei. Well, this new project is actually a bit of a follow-up to the latter, originally conceived as a sequel to the material Mark Kelson and Vainoras had written for Insomnius Dei’s Illusions of Silence. Those familiar with the aforementioned bands will know that the historical connection guarantees one thing: this will be dark. And you’re not wrong.

With five tracks taking up fifty-five minutes, this is a release that really takes its time. But don’t let the first half of opener “Between Apes and Angels” (well, once the monkey sounds have died down) fool you into thinking this is your average melodic doom album. While the basis of Subterranean Disposition is monstrous, brooding riffs broken up by somewhat eerie clean guitars, there are a whole lot of extra additions that make this such an interesting and ultimately memorable release. Heaven The Axe’s Phoebe Pinnock makes a guest appearance on “Prolong This Agony”, with the type of female vocals that you simply won’t see coming. Halfway through “Seven Sisters of Sleep” it explodes into jarring riffs and noisy screams that have a hint of something industrial, “The Most Subtle of Storms” has some stunningly used saxophone, and closer “Wailing My Keen” goes a little bit psychedelic.

In saying all that, the one thing that really stands out is Vainoras’ stellar vocal performance. Deep growls, melodic cleans, harsh shouts, croaky almost-spoken word; it’s all there, and occasionally at the same time. There are bands with three or four vocalists that still don’t have this range. And it works brilliantly in keeping the release enthralling from beginning to end.

There simply isn’t a flat moment on this release. Just get it.

Arriving from Canada’s Hypnotic Dirge Records, today we have a pretty solid Death/Doom Metal band named Subterranean Disposition. Unleashing their self-titled debut album, this one man band features Australian scene veteran Terry Vainoras delivering five tracks of crushing Death/Doom in the vein of bands like Mournful Congregation, Mourning Beloveth, but with a faster pace and a few surprises.

Opening with the 9-minute epic “Between Apes and Angles” the band has all the hallmarks of a traditional release in the genre and some cool atmospheric elements. The riffs are slow and powerful, and the growls are pretty solid, nothing out of the ordinary if you ask us. However, things start getting interesting with “Prolong this Agony” and some experimental elements here and there. The pop/jazzy female vocals work quite well when introduced in a melodic passage, effectively changing the pace of the track and puzzling the listener for a bit.

Featuring more very interesting tempo changes, “Seven Sisters of Sleep” delivers more unexpected twists that feel unconventional and quite refreshing since most releases in the genre seem to always stick to the basics only. The drumming in this track is quite engaging and the sudden shifts in the song’s atmosphere are quite diverse. Keeping things epic, “The Most Subtle of Storms” delivers another dosage of monumental riffs and brilliant (and jazzy) instrumental interludes that sound excellent in such a complex track.

Closing with another weird track featuring more female vocals and odd atmospheric passage, this self-titled debut clearly shows that Subterranean Disposition has very interesting ideas to bring to the genre. This one-man project still seems to be finding its identity, but we like what we have heard and the mixture of elements is mostly very well incorporated. If you like Doom riffs and deep growls and want to be surprised, go and check out this release on the band’s site or get it for a measly 5 dollars in digital form.

One of the many intriguing and captivating projects to join the ranks of the Canadian label is the Australian one man creation Subterranean Disposition, helmed by twenty year metal trouper Terry Vainoras.

The extensive musical career of Vainoras has seen him active with a long string of bands in the Australian metal scene including but not limited to the likes of legends Damaged, Hellspawn, The Eternal and Insomnium Dei and now his latest entity sees him adding further strings to an already well adorned bow.

Subterranean Disposition was initially created in 2008, inspired by music written for the last of those aforementioned bands by Terry and collaborator Mark Kelson with the hybrid doom/death/ambient behemoth finally ready to unleash a full length album upon the world.

Despite this self-titled opus only containing five tracks some of them are truly gargantuan in length and together they span the platter out to almost one full hour.

'Between Apes and Angels' starts the show with gentle acoustic mournful notes resonating among a strange collage of animalistic snarls, grunts and so forth before this is briefly joined by rainy ambience and then crushed underneath the inexorable onset of giant doomy chord reverberations.

Drums thud laboriously, cymbals clash and a mesmerising line of calm quiet guitar carefully slinks around the huge chord strikes and it is a whole two and three quarter minutes that pass prior to any vocals even showing themselves.

When these lyrical dispensements eventually do clamber up out of the sluggish doom landscapes they come in a manner thoroughly befitting of the outfits band moniker, cavernous death metal type utterances and dark sludgy roars, also aptly suited to the dragged out slog of the instrumentation.

Curls of melody rake claws against the doom chords as the drums oscillate behind the imposing bellows and growls of Vainoras then around four minutes in unexpected sombre (and slightly portentous) clean vocals make a transitory appearance upon the heels of which comes weird ominous spiralling leads.

Subterranean Disposition then proceeds to deliver one of the fastest passages on the whole album (for generally speaking, with this project predominantly ensconced in the doom genre as any doom aficionado well knows speed is not the key) with a moderate thrash chug that couples its serrated riffery with dark howls and pounding percussions but soon enough this abdicates to the feral vocal drags and slow trudges of sound.

Equally passive in its introductory stanzas is 'Prolong The Agony' with soft enchanting guitars though this too is destined for a temporary stay, brushed aside by hypnotic rhythmic stomps and roaring vocal incantations, billowing over pronounced drum thumps.

Here the vocals sound layered with several different styles seeming to roll in at once, neither and deep and cavernous as they were in 'Of Apes And Angels', rather they are more abrasive and edged with a sandpaper rasp and further vocal surprises are in store as the track progresses.

Sweet ethereal female voices supplant these main vocals around two minutes and bring a sense of radiant beauty to the piece, casting some light over the murky dark of much of the work, though even in terms of the music there are abundant examples of melody as well with morose but beautiful strains of acoustic guitar occasionally stealing pole position away from the heavy doom death slog.

 I mentioned before that the song lengths on the album are gargantuan and that is no exaggeration; the shortest, album closer 'Wailing My Keen' still almost clocks nine minutes and the longest 'The Most Subtle of Storms' reaches a staggering fourteen minutes fifty seconds (though the last five minutes of this massive monolith are essentially a skeletal sprawl of ambient stuff and finally silence).

'Seven Sisters of Sleep' is another gigantic entity that has a running time not so far off the twelve minute mark and of the five songs making up the album is the one that elects to forgo tranquil acoustic melodies as introduction, instead crashing right into a huge blast of dissonant chords.

There are tuneful moments that creep timidly into the frame, overwhelmed by the heavy crush and the cracked vocal depths but they're there nonetheless, wringing melody into the sound.

Also lodged in the giant cumbersome form of the composition are some justly deranged vocal outbursts, notably around four and three quarter minutes where a maddened series of violent expulsions and insistently pounding chords conquer the tranquillity that had previously been in existence.

These shirk the death metal growling method to instead scream in maniacal rasps as the dark unnerving aural horror unravels more and more layers, remaining of course in a unwavering slow-moving tromp.

Mournful leads, percussive rolls and effects bounce remorselessly from ear to ear while the same riff that has been prevalent throughout the protracted course of the number gnaws insistently on the tracks bones until ambience and ultimately nothingness wash away the fading instrumentation as it ends.

The enormous monster that is 'The Most Subtle of Storms' is a similarly slow paced conglomeration of sullen trudging chords, persistent riff patterns, unearthly growls vomited up out of the doomy slog and enchanting intervals ruled by melodies but what really helps this epic stand out is the much unexpected inclusion around seven minutes of a cool despondent saxophone.

This adds yet another dimension to an already compelling body of work though I'm a little less keen on the few full minutes of barren ambience that also reside in 'The Most Subtle of Storms'.

Subterranean Disposition’s self-titled album is one that will require more than just one cursory listen if you are to comprehend and appreciate all that comprises it and each consecutive spin will have more and more being revealed.

Unlike much doom oriented material which can be so uber repetitive or monotonous it makes me want to garrotte myself with a wire coat hanger Terry Vainoros' creation makes for fascinating listening and whilst it may possess a level of repetition to some sections it is constantly full of melodic aspects that never allow monotony to sink in.

As far as debut albums go this one is almost right up there and the experience its protagonist has in the extreme metal scene shines through here.

The name of Terry Vainoras may be at least passing familiar to any scholar of the Australian underground metal scene: it's a name that has been associated with what seems like a large proportion of all the Melbourne-based Death, Doom or Black Metal bands of the past twenty years, playing a variety of instruments on releases ranging from the Cryptal Darkness promo EP in 1997 to The Eternal's 2009 'Kartika'. As a side-project to The Eternal, Terry and Mark Kelson formed Insomnius Dei, recording one album, 'Illusions Of Silence', in 2007. Subterranean Disposition is Terry's solo project, ostensibly following on from, and expanding on, that collaborative work. 

Recorded during 2010, this self-titled debut is about to finally see release through Hypnotic Dirge Records, a Canadian underground independent label currently expanding to include a Doom roster. Quite aside from the album review, I feel the need to compliment HDR, who couldn't have been more helpful and friendly in supplying information and material, including a copy of this slickly-packaged and well-produced CD. (That's not as common as one might assume: many labels and bands supply nothing but download options, which are acceptable, if somewhat sterile and of variable quality, compared to seeing and hearing the finished article). 

So, returning to the album: it is, aside from a dash of female vocals, a brief saxophone piece and some unspecified 'additional programming' (presumably for the drums), entirely a solo work that probably best falls under the melodic Death/Doom banner, with some added experimentation. As befits a contributor of guitars, bass, keyboards and vocals to different bands over the years, the musicianship on display in those departments is to a consistently high standard, although the use of keyboard is minimal. The vocals are worth a comment in themselves, with a broad range from decent growls through snarled whispers to pleasantly deep clean singing. The drums are, it appears, entirely programmed - but, despite that, not bad: a lot of effort has been made to give them some body and variety. 

That last statement is equally true of the whole project: a lot of thought and effort has gone into developing the various strands of each of the long (9 minutes and up) tracks making up the album. The promotional text cites Cult Of Luna as a comparison, which is probably fair enough, but it also brings to mind the sort of thematic evolutions found in the likes of The Morningside's progressive/concept approach. There's a similar willingness to mix the slow and stately with the frantic and harsh, to use abrupt directional changes as well as more subtle building of intensity, to sidestep into a passage of ambient sound or a few spoken words. Overall, it's in a similar sort of vein to 'Moving Crosscurrent Of Time', but with a generally darker, bassier and more grimly aggressive sound. 

Most of the time, I have to say, the approach works well: the changing tempos and melody lines remain largely coherent within each song structure, and there are some standout moments, particularly in the sparely-used female vocals and sax and keyboard contributions. For me, the three tracks using these flourishes ('Prolong This Agony', 'Wailing My Keen', and centerpiece 'The Most Subtle Of Storms') are the highlights of the album. The last of those three is let down a little towards the end by an ambient passage of ocean sounds that stretches on rather longer than necessary: a shame, because it detracts from the otherwise slick way it merges into the closing guitar piece. My only real criticism would be of 'Seven Sisters Of Sleep', which could be a great track but for a section of grating, distorted vocals sandwiched between a hypnotically mellow bassline and a soaring guitar riff: the effect is presumably one of deliberate dissonance, sadly, it doesn't fit in at all. 

Still, the net result is a solid effort that demonstrates both considerable craft and attention to detail, along with some interesting exploration of the musical ideas. Not necessarily full of outright surprises, but with some twists and turns on a fairly dark and brooding journey: worth a listen, at the very least, I'd say. 

Published: June 18, 2012

One of the great things about being a music reviewer is that you oftentimes discover really cool bands that you would have otherwise never heard of. Case in point, Subterranean Disposition. The group is Australian and are best described as doom, but are in actuality more than just that. Like most doom bands, Subterranean Disposition's songs are played at a snail's pace, but these guys also throw in all sorts of other cool stuff - rock passages, some female vocals, ambient parts and even a little death metal. 

So far, Subterranean Disposition is the second band that I've heard from Hypnotic Dirge Records - an underground Canadian label - and thus far I'm really impressed by the quality of the label's material. Do yourself a favour and check out this and other releases from HDR. You won't regret it.