What do I know about Australia? Everything can kill you. They just had a big ol' fire. Lots of watershed bands come from there like AC/DC, ROSE TATTOO, WOLFMOTHER, MAMMOTH MAMMOTH, and a billion others. Kiwis hate to be called Australian, but I guess that's more about New Zealand than Australia. Oh, and they have a state called Tasmania where I am guessing the Tasmanian Devil comes from. Also from that region - Launceston, to be exact -is the Doom Metal band INTERITUM. Now I know some people call them Doom Sludge Stoner Groove Metal or something like that, but that's not really a sub-genre so much as a catalogue of influences, so let's just stick with Doom and be done with it. So, on March 23, 2020 INTERITUM released their first full-length album, "Forever.Silent.Broken."

The thing that stands out about INTERITUM, apart from how hard it is to reliably spell that name, is the vocal styling of Kel Barrett. This is a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that she has a distinctive sound that a lot of listeners will love; the bad thing is she can easily overpower the rest of the band. Another bad thing is if she ever leaves . . . I mean, it's not unsurmountable, but still. Now, the last we had a release from INTERITUM was in 2017 with their debut EP, "Conformed Suffering." Since that time guitarist Jack Hrycyszyn (PLAGUE OF SICKNESS) has replaced Freeman Cumbie-Wall. Lesson here is that you can replace a guitarist and the casual listener may never notice, but change the vocalist and you have another thing coming.

On to the music. Track one, "Submerged," kicks off with a sultry guttural from Kel and then the band follows with a groove-laden number which threatens to derail itself in a number of places but in the end hangs in there. Track two, "Suck My Humanity," fares much better and is able to shift tempo at will without driving the listener to distraction. Pausing here, this is my only criticism of the band. They love to change up the tempo but aren't always able to pull it off. When executed well, it comes across as a progressive movement; when executed poorly, it comes across as a bad pivot. You know, the type that dislocates your knee while the rest of your body keeps moving in the other direction. In this case the band is heading one direction and the vocals are heading in another.

INTERITUM is at their best when they are more Doom than Groove. In this vein, "Created and Rejected" excels, as does "Wasted Away" and "Fatal Life." These songs establish a core melody and tempo and then the band explores and expands the theme together. The remainder of the tracks are good to varying degrees. I should note the lead guitar solos without exception are excellent throughout the entire album. In fact, all the individual performances are strong; it's the just the melding where it sometimes comes unraveled.

Recognizing this is the band's first full-length album and the first with the adjusted line-up, it's fair to say they are still finding their feet. Final verdict is, "promising." As Paul Varjak says in "Breakfast at Tiffany's": "Mainly they're angry, sensitive, intensely felt, and that dirtiest of all dirty words - promising."