One of the best aspects of The Endless Underground isn’t necessarily that there is always more and more great music to discover – the eternal bounty of jams is a known wonder – but rather gaining an understanding of just how intricately the small strands of influence are woven together. Prior to this promo dropping into my inbox, I had no idea of even the existence of Exitus, or that these Finns put out one demo in 1990 and then promptly disappeared into eternal obscurity. But a small nugget in the promotional materials caught my eye: Albert Witchfinder, of the incomparable Reverend Bizarre, made a point to explain the worth of the demo, revealing that this small 32 minutes of doom, this tiny pin drop in the vast history of metal, had a profound influence on what would be one of the best doom acts of the last 15 years.
Statutum Est Hominibus Mori is, of course, the full result of Exitus’ lone recording session, but don’t go into it expecting it to sound like a natural predecessor to what Witchfinder and company eventually created. Instead, and quite surprisingly to these ears, the most natural and immediate impression is that they sound like a doom version of none other than thrash legends Coroner, straight down to vocalist Santtu Laakso sounding almost exactly like Ron Royce. The most appropriate way to describe this demo is to call it doom/thrash metal, and in truth, the band does three different things: full, traditional doom metal, outright blistering thrash, and a kind of doom-with-the-forcefulness-of-thrash mix. The latter is undoubtedly where Exitus is the most interesting and unique, but it takes the other two traits and the band’s subtle dynamic sensibilities to make it all work.
Of the demo’s seven tracks, only four are what could be considered fully-fledged songs, but the overall flow is effective, and the true songs each make use of the band’s full doom-to-thrash range. What elevates it all and makes the demo memorable – beyond the fact that it’s all actually quite well written – are the extra details and the band’s sense of when and how to make things big. The details might be a really fuzzy, simple guitar lead (the one place where the demo’s influence on Reverend Bizarre is obvious), a touch of Candlemassian pomp, or a hint of Into the Pandemonium-era Celtic Frost. The bigness shows up the most during closer “Thanatos,” where a massive initial riff and simple triple snare tap set the mood perfectly for not only the demo’s best track, but a great song in its own right. Those doomy, fuzzy leads are at their best here, when doubled and built upon before setting up a return to the thrash.
But perhaps even more than the immediately appealing material, one of the funnest aspects of Statutum, at least when viewing it through the scope of two passing decades, is how much it sounds of its time. The sense of attitude, instrumental tones, and “hey, this demo actually sounds like a demo!” production all add to this. Many new records do a respectable job sounding retro and even emulate a past production approach, but the vast majority still sound like just that: retro. Statutum sounds like it is from 1990 because it is from 1990, and it wouldn’t be hard to imagine this being some supergroup doom side project of the Coroner / Atheist / Pestilence era.
Exitus really would have found a home in that era, and it certainly would have been fun to watch them develop, particularly alongside other doom-twisters like Asphyx. The reissue allows us to not only hear the music that would eventually be one small thread in the quilt of influences for a much better known band, but also to hear some great metal that was seemingly lost in time. In that way, Statutum rises far above being a mere curiosity, and deserves a good ear from any fan of doom, thrash, or seamless hybrid metal in general.
