Officium Triste is a death-doom band from Rotterdam, The Netherlands. They refer to their style often as "Rotterdoom". It is largely inspired by bands like My Dying Bride and early Anathema, but the last album is slower and more melodic. The vocals are mostly intelligible death grunts but with occasional clean vocals. Their home-venue is Baroeg in Rotterdam. History The roots of Officium Triste go back to the early 1990s when Martin and Johan decided to form a metal band. The name of this band was Reïncremated. In the spring of 1994, the last line-up of this band decided to quit and reform under a new moniker with a different musical approach. The new moniker became Officium Triste. Musically, they started to compose heavy and melodic doom metal. The start of Officium Triste went pretty smooth and new songs were composed quickly. This resulted in the decision to record a demo, which was recorded at the Elektra in Sliedrecht on the 4th and 5 August 1994. The recordings were low-budget and made using a 4-track recorder. This recording session resulted in the Demo '94 which included three songs and an intro. The reactions from the underground scene were positive and eventually, all 200 copies were sold out. The music on this demo resulted in a deal with a label called Fuck You Records for a 7" EP. Officium Triste entered the Excess studio in Rotterdam on 19 and 20 February 1995 to record two new songs and an intro. Due to supposed lack of money the label did nothing. After a delay of a year, the band decided to release the EP by themselves. Vocalist Pim started Weeping Willow Records and released the EP Mountains Of Depressiveness pressed on red vinyl limited to 500 copies in the summer of 1996. In the meantime, during the summer of 1995, bass player Maarten quit the band and was replaced by Johan. Although the recordings were over a year old by the time they were released, the reactions within the scene were very good. This resulted in a deal with Dutch underground label Teutonic Existence Records for an album. The band entered Excess studio again to record the CD in December 1996. They recorded five new songs and re-recorded two songs from the demo and one from the EP in slightly different versions. In February 1997, the recording sessions were finished. The album