ESOGENESI are a Italian Death/Doom band who have released this self/titled into the increasingly crowded world of Death/Doom.  Fortunately, this five-track, forty-minute long foray into science fiction themed Extreme Metal proves ESOGENESI have what it takes to make a name for themselves. The most immediate aspect to the album is that the songs are very much guitar based. For Doom in general that probably comes at no surprise but, often times, Death/Doom bands tend to focus their long songs with a lot of build-up, ambiance, and an overall atmosphere that uses guitars but without making them front and center as far as the musical composition goes.

Although this album drips with the unfathomably dark atmosphere of Death/Doom that certainly displays the building of the songs, the riffs are certainly the focus here much of the time. "Abominio" opens the album with a flurry of clean guitar and Carlo's deep bass lines, highlighted by MICHELE's drums.  Once the guitars turn on the distortion, meaty riffs boosted by boisterous double bass bring the song to another level.  The hints of melody and Jacopo's monstrous Death growls round out an excellent opening track.  And that is just the first two and half minutes.  The song's middle portion breaks up the Death with some Atmospheric Doom, clean guitars and bass parts that separate the song's heavier two halves.  The latter half reminds me of the early demo days MY DYING BRIDE, complete with riffs that sound like they are grinding up bone.

The next track, "Decadimento Astrale," begins with a bang and one of the better sequence of riffs on the album that settles into a well-played groove. This track is a bit more straight forward than the opener but that is fine because it just continues to hammer in the intense nature of their brand of Death/Doom.  The last few minutes of the song are the best because of the melodic lead guitar that blends in expertly with the drums and riffs. The album's middle track "...Oltergenesi," is an instrumental—a well done one, mind you but it isn't even four minutes long, strangely shorter than the other four tracks.  As I said, it is a good track, but I can't help but think it could have blossomed into something more if it had been given the proper length to grow into, like the other tracks.

Despite the clean intro, "Esilio Nell'Extramondo," is the heaviest track on the album—I mean, it is down right mega ton crushing in places.  From 1:40 to 4:35 is suffocating in the pure Death/Doom attack that doesn't seem like it will end.  Just when it might be too much to handle, the song puts on the breaks for some more atmospheric melody.  It works well, plus it makes the second half sound all the more devastating.  Death/Doom can be even more crushing than the most brutal of Death Metal bands and this track really shows this off.

"Incarnazione Della Conoscenza," is the final track, one that builds up as a slow rolling bulldozer, killing everything in its path as it climbs towards a might crescendo after about seven minutes.  The last two a half minutes are among the album's most intense and even sound a little like Black Metal. I've reviewed/listened to quite a bit of Death/Doom this year and this self-titled debut from ESOGENESI is powerful enough to stand among some of the genre's bigger releases.  I can't wait to see what else the band can do in the future and if you are a fan of the subgenre, they should be on your radar for sure.