Time Signature Riders of doom...

Doooooom metal

Originally released in 2006, The Gates of Slumber's Suffer No Guilt is released this year on Deepsend records. I do not think that there has been made any changes to the album production-wise, so you might ask yourself "why the hell rerelease it?". Well, the answer is that it is a bloody good album, so why not reissue it so more people will become familiar with it? That's quite simple logic to me.

Anyway, it is also a great chance for people to experience some old school doom metal amidst the swamp of sludge- and stoner-metal releases that pass for doom metal nowadays. Well, I dislike neither sludge- nor stoner-metal, but I know that a lot of old school doomsters are critical towards the take on slow and heavy music that is associated with sludge- and stoner-metal, and the reissue of this album should no doubt be good news to them.

True to the old school doom metal genre, The Gates of Slumber start of their album, following the Candlemass formula, with an uptempo rocker in the form of 'Angel of Death' which gallops its way straight into your inner caveman's headbanging genes, before the slow and wonderfully doom-laden title track kicks in with a slow and heavy riff. Slightly similar in style is the 12-minutes long aptly titled 'Riders of Doom' which features an atmosphere-setting intro with the sound of hoves and midnight storms, followed by a slow bass riff eventually accompanied by a bluesy lead guitar some two and a half minutes into the song, a heavy guitar riff spells doom and gloom in a fashion not dissimilar to Saint Vitus' simple but effective riffs. As if to remind us that, in doom metal, things are not rushed, the vocals only kick in after six minutes, as the tempo is also sped up a bit. Even more epic is the 22 minutes long 'God Wills It' which takes the listener on a journey through all kinds doom and gloom.

In addition to the doom tracks "proper", the album features several interesting little intermezzos, some of which are strangely psychedelic (like 'Wyrmwood), while others are melodic and melancholic acoustic pieces (like 'Children of the Night'), and others again have an almost epic like feel to them (like 'Gemini' and the outro 'The Woe of Kings').

In essence, everything about this album spells old school doom metal – from the Saint Vitus-esque riffage over the Black Sabbath-inspired heavy bass and the Pentagram-like psychedelia to the Cirith Ungol-informed fantasy-inspired cover art. And nothing could be more awesome than that. Fans of said doom metal artists should, if they are not already familiar with The Gates of Slumber's Suffer No Guilt, invest in it with no hesitation.

(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)

Phonebook Eater 8/10

"The Dreadful Hours" is the soundtrack to the last moments before a storm of evil washes away all hope.

My Dying Bride’s last great album so far, “The Dreadful Hours”, was yet another release that had strong roots attached to the conventional Death Doom Metal style, giving it however a twist of uniqueness that is only of this album. Followed by a decent return-to-old-style sort of album (“The Light at The End Of the World”), this 2001 release manages to become one of the key albums of the band’s discography and of Death Doom Metal in general.

The unique twists are a few: the use of a clean atmosphere smothered in various effects is much more prominent, and is very often a great part of a composition; it wouldn’t be surprising if the band picked up a bit of Post-Rock during the period this album was being recorded. The alternative moments to these, which obviously are the Doomy ones, are relatively much more fast paced (much alike “Light at The End Of the World”) than other works of the band; the vocals are more tended towards Black Metal-ish shrieks, when they don’t have the plaintive, clean nature Aaron Stainthorpe usually delivers. There also seems to be a larger use of keyboards, really great additions to especially the more atmospheric passages.

The themes presented in “The Dreadful Hours” are very similar to the ones we find in other My Dying Bride lyrics: a strong presence of God ( a savior or condemner?), as well as the figure of a poisonous, life-sucking woman who often symbolizes some deeper allegories; in other examples, she is simply an object of desire for the persona, who feels a suffered love for her. Among the lyrical highlights, the title track is about an infant as it is rejected by the parents, while “Le Figlie Della Tempesta” describes—once again—a divine female character that disillusions and tricks people with lies. “the Return to The Beautiful” has the longest and possibly most challenging lyrics of the album, with it’s brief, enigmatic Latin phrases and again an evident theme of deception, darkness, but also irresistible beauty.

Even with one hour and ten minutes of total length time, “The Dreadful Hours” rarely loses its impact, starting from the first episode, the title track: a two minute, atmospheric Post Rock/Metal kind of passage opens up to another one of a relatively faster pace for My Dying Bride, binging in memorable riffs and vocals. “Le Figlie Della Tempesta” is another great highlight, with pretty much the same structure of the previously mentioned track, but perhaps darker, more desolate, and more tense; the calmer moments remind of a storm coming towards the listener’s way. “Black Heart Romance” is again a really excellent example of great songwriting, where plenty of feelings are condensed in one song, without any one of them overlapping another. Then, “The Return to The Beautiful” is the fourteen minute epic finale, by some considered (including lead singer) the best track the band has ever released. The other songs, too, are not inferior in terms of quality; they are more solemn, and typical tracks you’d expect from My Dying Bride, in a good way.

“The Dreadful Hours” is a sublimely crafted piece of Doom Metal; the band does not hesitate however in finding new ways to enrich their sound, with a more frequent use of keyboards, vocal choruses, and Post-rock brushes. Still today, this is regarded as one of the key moments of the genre and of the band’s discography.

Time Signature Sonic titan...

Genre: doom metal

With a band name like Sleep and an album title like Dopesmoker any connoisseur of doom metal – even if he or she was unfamiliar with Sleep – would be able to infer that this release contains music that probably fits very well into the stoner doom genre.

And, lo and behold, it does. Containing one track only (plus a very badly produced 11 minutes long live bonus track), which clocks in at 63 minutes (and, according to the promo material, has quite a history of writing, label rejection, rewriting, more rejection, renaming, rewriting, shelving etc.), Dopesmoker takes the listener on a journoey through a landscape of slow and heavy riffs, crunchy guitars, heavy but dynamic drums, and a big, fat, round bass, all of which is shrouded in a thick cloud of hashish-infused intervert atmosphere. The main source of inspiration – and the nearest comparable artists – appear to be early Black Sabbath, Pentagram and Saint Vitus (Sleep even make used of Iommi-styled double guitar blues-based solos).

Needless to say, 63 minutes of pure stoner doom is somewhat of a challenge to the uninitiated, and I can imagine that even some seasoned doom metal fans will need to just pause the album for a couple of minutes at the time. However, while the uninitiated may find this album monotonous and boring, people who understand doom metal will ultimately be able to appreciate the subtleties in variation and Sleep's use of heavy doom-laden riffs and the power of variation. In other words, all the aesthetics that define quality doom metal are there.

Seasoned fans of doom, stoner and sludge metal should definitely check out Sleep's Dopesmoker, but if you are new to the doom metal genre, you should probably save the release for later and go for some less dense and hypnotic releases. In any case, Dopesmoker is dark and heavy and strikes a perfect balance between the darkness of doom metal and the psychedelia of stoner rock.

(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)

Warthur On The Maniacal Vale Esoteric play a death-tinged psychedelic variety of funeral doom, with slow, ponderous riffs, death-grunt vocals and the occasional lapse into spacey, psychedelic territory of the sort explored by early Pink Floyd (say, on the live side of Ummagumma) or Hawkwind. Though the compositions tend to stretch out to vast lengths, we aren't quite dealing with full-on drone metal here; although things happen slowly, there's an awful lot of things that do happen, and the sound of the band is actually extremely varied. As an introduction to the funeral doom genre - which is what it is for me - it's a very capable one and it certainly makes me want to hear more both of the genre and of Esoteric themselves.

Warthur A continuous drone metal composition, Feedbacker comes across to me as a celebration of the guitar and all the wonderful things you can do with it. Set against long, glacial doom riffs, the band regularly break out into more varied guitar performances, ranging from post-rock strumming to almost traditional metal riffing to wailing, shrieking feedback. Overall, it's not going to be to everyone's taste, but personally I think it's an intriguing album which pulls off the trick all great ambinet works do in providing a piece of music which you can equally apply your full attention to or have running in the background to set a mood.

Phonebook Eater 6/10

"The Light At The End Of The World" is a decent return to a style that is more traditional of My Dying Bride.

My Dying Bride are one of the most well known and respected Doom Metal acts of all time. With such a high reputation, this band has managed to consistently release some great albums over the years, in particular their third album “Turn Loose The Swans” and it’s follow up, “The Angel and The Dark River”, both of these released in the mid nineties. After a few, more disappointing albums, the band return to shine, in the eyes of many fans, with 1999’s “The Light at The End Of The World”.

This release of theirs is quite unlike what they have ever done; this is thus far the darkest, most unsettling and disturbing album the band has released. The desperation of previous albums seem to be almost a joke compared to this extremely emotionally difficult album. The sound itself hasn’t drastically changed, but there is a more frequent use of subtle synthesizers, more extreme vocals (which seem to be more Black Metal influenced this time around), and a bit faster-paced melodies. While it may not be the Doomiest album of the band, it is the grimmest and most pessimistic, despite only slight stylistic changes.

The concepts brought up are not estranged to other Doom Metal material, nor to other My Dying Bride lyrics: pain, suffering, revenge, hopelessness, and quite a few religious themes are what the lyrics portray, and there are some interesting stories depicted too; in the title track, the story is of a man who is forced to guard an everlastingly deserted sea from a lighthouse on an isolated island. He begs his divinity for one night only with his woman, which he does get; but the following day, he will stay eternally in solitude on the island, without ever seeing a man or woman. The lyrics of the other songs are not as epic, but a couple still have an intriguing nature: “She Is The Dark” incarnates deceit and pain into a woman, while “Edenbeast” is about a feast of sin that takes place in Eden, possibly a metaphor of the presence of corruption and greed in the most unexpected places.

The songs on this release are extremely evocative, especially in the first half of the album; songs like “She Is The Dark” and “Edenbeast”, other than having dark, haunting melodies, also bring to the listener the feeling of being in front of an abandoned, dark plain, where man’s sins and defects are laid down and exposed. However, it is sad to see that some of the songs, during the second half of the album, are not nearly as powerful as they should: “Christliar” has an interesting structure, but does not give any emotional impact whatsoever, just like the compressed intensity of “The Fever Sea”, the title track (despite it’s majestic lyrics) or “Into The Lake Of Ghosts”. They are not really bad tracks, they simply aren’t able to accomplish the task (that is admittedly hard to do) to stay as haunting as the emotional concepts in the lyrics.

“The Light At The End Of The World” is a unique album for My Dying Bride, being also their first album, after those more experimental albums preceding it, to return to the more traditional style. However, this return isn’t as successful as I would have liked; “The Dreadful Hours”, the following album, will have done the job in a much more satisfactory way.

Time Signature Let them fall...

Genre: doom metal

The lords of doom are back! And it sounds like they were never gone. In fact, it sounds like it's still 1969, and with fuzzy guitars and heavy blues-influences Saint Vitus pretty much take us back to doom metal in its infancy.

With minimalistic and crushingly heavy guitar riffs as the main ingredient, Saint Vitus draws on a bass-rich and fuzz-ladden quite dirty guitar sound, which suits the overall tortured and desolate feel of this album perfectly (and which is very reminiscent of the sound on "Born Too Late", too). And, needless to say, Scott Weinrech's characteristic vocals, the heavy drum beats and the driving bass contribute equally importantly to the retention of the typical Saint Vitus sound no this album.

A track like "Let Them Fall" is simple and heavy and compellingly expressive, while the massive "The Bleeding Ground" has the same sort of darkly psychedelic groove associated with Black Sabbath, although the tempo is increased towards the end and a chaotic and at times noisy guitar solo kicks in. "Vertigo" is a melodic instrumental and allows one to rest the ears after the brilliant noise of "The Bleeding Ground". Drawing on a heavy (but actually quite uptempo) and minimalistic riff, "Blessed Night" has an almost hypnotic quality to it, and that big fat bass sound is just brilliant. "The Waste of Time" is a heavy and doom-laden track evolving around a set of classic doom metal-style riffs. This also applies to "Dependence", which is the magnum opus of the album (which does have a slightly more epic feel to it than anything else on the album), while "Withdrawal" is a sort of soundscape-thing evolving around experimentation with guitar noises.

Fans of doom metal should definitely check out this release. In true Saint Vitus style, it is retro beyond belief and goes all the way back to doom metal in its earliest form. It is slow, heavy, minimalistic, darkly psychedelic, tortured, dirty and bleak. It is true doom metal in every sense. If you love your Pentagram and your Black Sabbath, then you will also love Saint Vitus' "Lillie: F-65".

Kingcrimsonprog Call It Conspiracy is the third full-length album by the Sweedish Stoner/Desert Rock band Dozer, it was released in 2003 and was their first full album on Molten Universe Records.

If you have never heard Dozer before I would highly recommend that you at least try them out. Their style has its roots undeniably in the Stoner/Desert Rock scene, but they also have a very unique and enjoyable style of their own. They are suitable for a lot of Rock and Metal fans from different parts of a certain end of the spectrum. If you find yourself a fan of bands like Monster Magnet, Clutch, Kyuss and QOTSA, Goatsnake, St Vitus, Red Fang, Black Tusk, Mastodon and even High On Fire then you really, really ought to give Dozer a few open-minded listens.

Dozer’s first two albums had shown immense potential and while they were both good, they were ultimately a little too derivative of Kyuss. With this third album, Call It Conspiracy, the band truly found their own sound and made the first of three utterly essential records that modernize and push the boundaries of the Stoner/Desert sound and deliver creative and interesting music that no one else has made before.

Call It Conspiracy has a much more diverse and eclectic feel than other Dozer albums. If their first two albums were ‘fun’ and their fourth and fifth albums sounded ‘Important’ and ‘Dark’ respectively, then this album comes across as enthusiastic, confident and experimental. It was the album on which Fredrik Nordin’s unique and loveable voice really expanded and got its full range, and on which Tommi Holappa’s distinctive and instantly recognizable lead style really got its personality.

On this album, the band really found a voice of their own and weren’t afraid to try new things, they cover a lot of ground and do a great job rooting it all into their core sound. The single ‘Rising’ for example has a sort of Fu Manchu-esque sound glued together with fun drum-rolls, ‘Feel Good Formula’ and the closer ‘Lightning Stalker’ both have a bit of psychedelic influences and eastern flavor but not overwhelmingly so, ‘The Exit’ takes their older sound and updates it with the new vocal and lead guitar direction, ‘Spirit Fury Fire’ is slow and groovy and ‘A Matter Of Time’ almost foreshadows the direction of their classic fourth album, only at about two times the speed.

Overall, Call It Conspiracy is an absolute must-have album for any Dozer fan and an album that any serious fan of rock and metal (especially a fan of any of the aforementioned bands) should at least consider checking out. The one thing I would say is that the album is a grower and an back-heavy album that gets even better towards the end and consequently it can take a few spins to really get to grips with and absorb all the little touches, so give it a fair chance to win you over.

The band would follow up Call It Conspiracy with their perfectly formed masterpiece Through The Eyes Of Heathens in 2006 and then follow that up with the dark and artistic Beyond Colossal in 2008, and if you’ve enjoyed this album then I’d strongly recommend trying those as well.

UMUR "Boldly Stride The Doomed" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US doom/heavy metal act Argus. The album was released through Cruz del Sur music in May 2011. There is a vinyl version available which features two bonus tracks. A cover of "At The Gallows End" by Candlemass and "Róisín Dubh" by Thin Lizzy.

On "Boldly Stride The Doomed" the band play a combination of epic doom metal in the vein of Candlemass and traditional heavy metal. Especially the guitar harmonies remind me of Iron Maiden and there are a couple of galloping rythms too that point in that direction. The busy bass work of Andy Ramage also has Steve Harris (Iron Maiden) written all over it. The band are incredibly well playing, the sound production is powerful and these guys are more than able to write both powerful and memorable material too. As icing on the cake Argus have a both skilled and powerful vocalist in Brian "Butch" Balich. He has a raw singing style but with a melodic sensibility. I assure you the "Butch" in his name isn´t taken out of thin air.

"Boldly Stride The Doomed" is an excellent album to fans of epic doom metal with traditional heavy metal traits. We´re talking a high quality release here and a 4 star (80%) rating is fully deserved.

Warthur The latest Electric Wizard album doesn't quite scratch the doom metal riff for me. The production seems a little off and the riffs this time around seem significantly less heavy - at points in danger of dropping out of doom metal territory altogether and turning into alt-rock stuff. The subject matter is the same old territory for the band, but the execution just doesn't gel so well, which is particularly surprising since the previous two Electric Wizard Mk. II albums had so successfully salvaged the band's sound. Hardcore Wizard fans will enjoy it but to be honest I can't listen to it all the way through without wanting to just turn it off and put Dopethrone on again instead.

Phonebook Eater 8/10

"The Angel And The Dark River" is another My Dying Bride milestone that would influence a great deal of the Doom Metal to come.

My Dying Bride’s career had a sudden twist, with the release of their sophomore LP, “Turn Loose The Swans”, for some people the masterpiece of the band. But the third album, “The Angel And The Dark River”, got just as much recognition: now, fans are sill debating which of these two early records is the magnum opus of the act. Anyway the debate goes, this 1995 release still keeps incredibly high levels from every point of view, and has risen up to be considered one of the key albums of Doom Metal.

Compared to the ethereally gloomy atmosphere of “Turn Loose The Swans”, “The Angel And The Dark River” is almost more bright in terms of sound: the levels of despair and hopelessness are not at all as extreme as they were with the band’s second album. The music in this third LP generally is much more fast-paced, more dynamic and lively. There seems to be a much stronger focus on the songwriting itself: the amount of effects used (that is, keyboards, guitar effects and what not) is minimal, although some peculiar elements that were present in the previous efforts, like the violin or the lamenting clean vocals, still persist and are a great part of the album. But another great, noticeable change is the almost complete absence of Death Metal growls (with the exception of the last track), a factor that made My Dying Bride such a unique band at it’s origins. However, “Turn Loose the Swans”, because of its slight change in direction, shows how the band had reached a sort of independence from the point of view of artistic freedom, even if it was really early in their career.

The themes present in “The Angel and The Dark River” are more or less the same we see in other Doom Metal bands and in other My Dying Bride releases, including loss of hope, desperation, but also more religious elements, like the strong presence of God in the lyrics. This sort of gloominess though on this album is much more human and rational than the more extreme tones of TLTS, and feel also more credible.

With seven tracks, My Dying Bride once again bring a solid album structure together: the twelve minute opener “The Cry Of Mankind” is already a track where the change in direction is pretty obvious, because of the lively guitar riff that Agalloch probably kept in mind eleven years later, while writing songs for “Ashes Against The Grain”. This riff is the heart of the piece, and is accompanied by the rest of the instruments, including a piano. The last few minutes of the track are somewhat Dark Ambient driven, another aspect that is new for MDB. “From Darkest Skies” is an even more emotional piece, where there are strong alterations between feelings: if one part sounds resigned and lost, the next one is angry and revengeful. “A Sea To Suffer In” is of a noticeably heavier nature, because of the overwhelming crunch the guitars have, enriched by the intense melodies and the extremely urgent feel. Then “Only Two Winters” is half clean, half electric: in the first part, a gorgeous, deep guitar melody that holds even a bit of nostalgia in it, in the second part, a sort of catch-up to the heaviness. “Your Shameful Heaven” is the most violent song yet, proof of how progressively strong the sounds get as the album flows. And then, the album finishes with “The Sexuality of Beaverment”, the only song where there is a return to the “Turn Loose The Swans” feel, especially thanks to the growls, and the slow rhythms. Overall, this last piece is a great closer and gives an epic end to the previously mentioned progression.

“The Angel And The Dark River” has now received a status as a Doom Metal classic: it has terrific songwriting, that overcomes the need of atmosphere and studio effects, and an intriguing, gloomy romanticism, that is unique only of this band.

Phonebook Eater 6/10

"Sorrow And Extinction" is an honest Doom Metal tribute, with some hints of originality here and there.

Pallbearer are a fresh band from Arkansas, USA, and “Sorrow And Extinction” is their debut album, with of a well received EP/Demo released in 2010 behind their backs. While they are not the most original Doom Metal band out there, they still put in their music some personality that makes them distinguishable.

The Doom Metal Pallbearer play is really Traditional: slow, low octave riffs, slow rhythms, and a pretty standard pitched voice. The production of the album though makes everything sound huge and extremely heavy, a heaviness that could be accomplished only in these recent years, making Pallbearer something a little more than a nostalgic Traditional Doom Metal band. Very few are the variations in terms of sound, with the exceptions of the first and last track, both of them including more diverse instrumentation and an overall slight change in direction compared to the other three tracks. The atmosphere this huge sounds gives is an arcane, somewhat mystical one. The feeling of the entire LP in fact is one that is almost liturgical, a prayer for nameless divine figures. The lyrics, besides being about sorrow, graves, rivers, sacrifices, always incorporate isolation, and strange encounters with some sort of ancient divinities, that end up symbolizing either direct or indirect causes of man’s evil. These are lyrical themes that are familiar for Traditional Doom Metal and many other genres; Pallbearer lyric-wise seem to be almost giving a tribute to these themes, even though they never manage to feel too old or clichéd.

With almost fifty minutes of music and five long tracks, “Sorrow and Extinction” is an extremely solid release in terms of structure: the first track, the twelve minute “Foreigner”, starts with an acoustic passage and develops into a burst of heaviness, giving the track some appreciable variety. But the following three songs have no particular changes going on throughout them, making the listen a little more monotonous, considering also the fact that none of them are in any way memorable, and more or less simply get the job done by delivering an interesting and consistent atmosphere. The last track redeems a bit all the monotony, adding to the sound much more keyboards, a nice chorus, and an overall more progressive feel.

“Sorrow And Extinction” is an pretty, standard, Traditional Doom Metal album, but the energy and freshness of Pallbearer are undeniable, and, like it was mentioned, they do have a slightly unique approach mood-wise, thanks to the great crunchiness of the guitars. If the band incorporate more instrumentation and clearer melodies, they would be one of the golden bands of today’s Traditional Doom Metal.

Warthur Triptykon is Tom Warrior's furious vengeance for the end of Celtic Frost - an affair over which he still held some bitterness at the time this album came out, if interviews of the time were anything to go by. Still, it hasn't put good old Tom off his musical vision any - if anything, this album continues the work begun on Monotheist in weaving together the three major traditions of extreme metal (death, black and doom) into a cohesive whole, an aim which the opening track Goetia accomplishes perfectly. Then, somehow, even though it shouldn't be possiblem, the subsequent tracks go even further than that.

Hellhammer was derided as a joke at the time and is still an acquired taste now; Celtic Frost baffled critics but redefined extreme metal. Triptykon, finally, sees Tom Warrior getting some respect - and it might just blow the world apart with its raw evil.

Phonebook Eater 8/10

"Turn Loose The Swans" is a gothic masterpiece of hopelessness intertwining with crushing beauty.

My Dying Bride’s sophomore album puts the band high on the Olympus of Doom Metal bands; still today, this band is one of the most respected acts of Metal music, receiving something like a cult status.

Doom Metal in 1993 wasn’t exactly the most popular kind of music that was metal-oriented: this genre though has been one with a very interesting fan-base, and a genre that has a well-respected history that goes way back, from the early Black Sabbath days. My Dying Bride is a major symbol of evolution in Doom Metal, a band that distanced themselves from the “Traditional” Doom Metal sound typical of bands like Pentagram, Candlemass or Trouble. Although there were bands that incorporated Death Metal and keyboards slightly before the arrival of My Dying Bride, the British band, along maybe with diSEMBOWLMENT, was the first to make Doom Metal more recognized.

“Turn Loose The Swans” has all of the traits of the genre: low-octave, slow, heavy riffs and desperately gloomy lyrics. But the bluesy, retro-feel Traditional Doom sound here is nowhere to be found. Instead, we have an excellent production, Death Metal passages,--usually the heavier ones-- and a great dose of atmosphere, created by keyboards or various effects. Another important addition that really gives a touch of elegancy to the songwriting is the violin, very frequent even in the heavier moments, or the piano driven moments. All this together makes My Dying Bride’s “Turn Loose The Swans” a very ambitious, almost progressive album, with many twists and turns, short and long cuts that still aim towards a precise and effective scope.

Starting with the seven minute, piano driven “Sear Me MCMXCIII”, a desolate, grief-inducing introduction to the general atmosphere of the album, My Dying Bride go full force with “Your River”, where they vent extremely intriguing songwriting, great performances, and a desperate feeling that might even discomfort the listener. The desolation persists especially with the twelve minute “the Crown Of Sympathy”, one of the key moments of the album, a wonderfully arranged, complex, and multi-parted track that is haunting as well as terrifying. Some of the heavier moments, like “The Snow In My Hand” or the title track, are more focused on actual songwriting instead of creating gloomy auras, but the closing track “Black God”, as beautiful as it is, is more repetitive and once again more focused on the atmospheric delivery.

“Turn Loose the Swans” is one of the key Doom Metal albums of all time; essential listening for whoever is into Metal music. It's almost unearthly despair still give the chills today.

Warthur Death Magic Doom mixes up the grim atmosphere and Rob Lowe vocals of King of the Grey Islands with the uncharacteristically bouncy and jubilant tone of the band's self-titled album, creating an album with some monstrously chunky riffs but at the same time feels like it lacks focus compared to earlier efforts by the band. I'm inclined to agree with Time Signature that the album almost seems even more Sabbath-influenced than ever before, with If I Ever Die in particular resembling Tony Iommi's work with Sabbath. On the whole, the release of any new Candlemass album is cause for doom metal fans to sit up and take notice and this is no different.

Warthur On God Is Good Om finally reach a more nuanced delivery of the spiritual music the project is inspired by - finally, the band's meditation music side has caught up to its doom metal chops. At points on here their compositions remind me of the music of Popol Vuh, who also made a point of combining spiritual music from varied cultures with a more modern musical style (Krautrock in Popol Vuh's case, doom metal in Om's case). I find Om's albums to be rather variable, but the accomplishment shown on God is Good makes me expect even greater things from the band in the future - assuming the reformation of Sleep doesn't put Om on hold for good.

Warthur The Sword's first album was a solid piece of throwback metal; the very capable followup, Gods of the Earth, is a crushing stoner metal classic which manages to sound simultaneously ancient and modern. On the one hand, the recording and compositional approach taken here clearly draws on both the bands and the general thematic moods of the 1970s metal scene, whilst on the other hand they are no longer out to merely mimic old bands but seem determined to carve out their own sound. Raucous, rowdy, and fast, this is almost outside of the doom metal category altogether were it not for a few slow and punishing riffs here and there. Recommended for any doom or stoner metal fans who like a big dose of proto-metal on the side.

Warthur Pilgrimage finds Om chugging along in the same general style as they arrived at in Conference of the Birds, though this time they trim back the length of the tracks a little to provide more succinct pieces. It's another pleasant enough album, but whereas Conference of the Birds felt like a real artistic breakthrough on Pilgrimage the band seem to revert to treading water. It's a short album at only 32 minutes, but in that brief time they don't really do very much which they didn't accomplish better on Conference, and I honestly don't feel I need multiple albums in this very specific style unless the albums in question are of a transcendently brilliant quality.

Time Signature After...

Genre: sludge doom

Dutch Nachtvorst may well originate from the black metal scene, but on Silence black metal only features as an ingredient in the overall sound, which is much more directed towards the bleakness and oppression of doom and sludge metal than towards the chaos and evil of black metal.

The first track 'The Serpent's Tongue' opens with a crushingly heavy doom-laden riff, and for the next six and a half minutes, the listener is treated to heavy, chucking, doomy riffs accompanied by growled and screechy vocals. This is followed by a nice atmospheric section with piano effects and clean guitars, before the chucking doom riffs kick in again. The song is concluded with another atmospheric section which transitions into the dark and melancholic quasi-symphonic instrumental 'After...'. 'Nightwinds' adds a sludgy touch with its aggressive opening riff and slightly hardcore-ish edge, but after three minutes the tempo is lowered and things slowly build up towards a heavy black-doom section. The atmospheric and 'Gentle Notice of a Final Breath' has an almost post-metal feel to it. '...Before' is another atmospheric instrumental piece, and 'A Way of Silence' concludes the album majestically in a shroud of introvert darkness and shoegazing doom.

Apart from screechy vocals and dissonant harmonies every now and then, the most prevalent black metal feature on Silence is Nacthvorst's use of repetition, and, while repetition can end up generating boredom-inspiring monotony, Nachtvorst have mastered the power of repetition. They use it very efficiently, generating a sense of bleakness and oppression, but at no point do the tunes on this album get boring (which is quite a feat since the songs are actually quite long).

The production is actually quite good, and there really is a lot of bottom on the bass and guitars, giving the album an extra punch towards heaviness, while the drums have a well-defined sound allowing you to hear every single beat.

Fans of doom metal and depressive black metal are likely to find this work of darkness and oppression to be a very enjoyable album, and perhaps fans of atmospheric black metal, sludge metal and post-metal will take a liking to Silence as well because of the many elements deriving from those genres.

(review originally posted on seaoftranquility.org)

Warthur The second incarnation of Electric Wizard really gets under steam on this fantastic little doom metal album. Once again, weed-addled ramblings about classic horror movies and pulp fiction are the order of the day, with the works of such luminaries as Hammer Horror and H.P. Lovecraft being honoured with songs, and once again Sabbath-derived doom metal is the musical style the band present us with. And once again, few bands come up with heavier or more compelling riffs to justify this bong-induced haze than Electric Wizard. It might not quite reach the standards of Dopethrone, but it gives me every reason to hope that the band will produce another five-star classic in the future, and is a more than entertaining enough album in its own right.

Warthur Reverend Bizarre's final album is presented in that most dangerous of formats: a 2CD double album with each CD crammed with over an hour of music. Few bands can sustain a consistent level of quality across the space of such a long album without letting filler slip in here and there, but Reverend Bizarre manage to pull it off; even better, their flirtation with shorter and more commercial song formats on Crush the Insects seems to have been dropped in favour of the epic approach of their debut album. (Ironically, this seems to have resulted in their greatest commercial success, with a 16 minute edit of the opening track hitting number 1 in the Finnish single charts!)

This swansong for the band sees them at their most inventive - perhaps the most surprising feature being the use of synthesisers to add a Byzantine texture to the outro of Caesar Forever - and stands alongside the classic In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend as a monument to a brilliant and all too short-lived band.

Warthur A lesser band than Candlemass would have botched this one. Few other groups could suffer the loss of a lead singer as legendary as Messiah Marcolin at an early stage in the recording sessions of an album, complete the album with a guest vocalist (even one as talented as Rob Lowe of Solitude Aeturnus), and have it come out sounding this good. As it is, Lowe seems to slip into the Candlemass groove almost immediately - no surprise, considering that Solitude Aeturnus work with a very similar aesthetic - and delivers some fantastic performances, particularly on the melancholic and megalomaniac rant of Emperor of the Void. All of a sudden, I can't imagine current-era Candlemass without him.

Warthur The latest Solitude Aeturnus album sees the band incorporating a few world music motifs here and there into their melancholic epic doom metal approach (particularly in the guitar work). Once again, comparisons to Candlemass are apt - indeed, Rob Lowe would take up his stint as the lead singer of Candlemass shortly after the completion of this album - but it's surprising how the incorporation of a few musical influences from other cultures can save the album from becoming overly formulaic. It's yet another winner in the Solitude Aeturnus discography, and comes highly recommended for fans of purist doom metal in the best tradition of Candlemass.

Warthur Although Celtic Frost's earliest albums were incredible blueprints for the more "evil" brands of extreme metal (death metal and black metal) to follow, their later efforts weren't so influential. Into the Pandemonium, whilst intriguingly experimental, didn't really inspire anyone to follow suit, whilst Cold Lake and Vanity/Nemesis found the band following the glam metal and thrash metal pack respectively.

Monotheist, their reunion album, is another question entirely. After decades of other bands building on the mighty foundations erected on such recordings as Morbid Tales, Emperor's Return, and To Mega Therion, Celtic Frost's return finds them synthesising more or less every extreme metal genre imaginable into a horrifying chimera. The centre of gravity of the album's sound seems to be rooted in doom metal - but of a distinctly modern bent with little Black Sabbath influence - but so much of death metal, black metal, gothic metal and even progressive metal (particularly on the closing triptych) seems into the music that it's incredibly hard to pin the album down.

What's even more impressive is how well this delirious mishmash of genres works. It's clear that Celtic Frost haven't settled for any mere nostalgia-fest from the reunion; instead, they've produced an album which sounds incredibly ahead of this time, showing the young imitators once and for all who the real kings of extreme metal are. We may never know the exact reasons behind the final Celtic Frost split - Tom Warrior isn't letting any hints slip beyond his disappointment at Michael Ain for suggesting that the band might continue without Warrior, and his barely-concealed rage at drummer Franco Sesa who Warrior seems to primarily blame for the split - but we can at least be grateful they went out with a bang. In fact, I'd say this is the greatest album they ever made.

Warthur Om's second album is a substantial improvement of a debut; the format still consists of epic, slow doom metal based on the rhythms and cadence of traditional Tibetan meditative chants, but this time around there's a bit more of a groove to the proceedings and the band succeed much more at crafting compositions which manage to retain the listener's interest despite a high level of repetition and a slow pace of change over the course of their running times. I was sceptical about the Om experiment on listening to their debut, but Conference of the Birds convinces me that the idea behind the project is sound - it's just that it took them a couple of albums to get the execution right.

renkls Nullify is, as I see it, a step forward for Bunkur, as well as a huge step down into the deeper pits of nihilism and depression. It is a huge single song album at 77 minutes, and in that time, very little happens in the sparsely littered length besides feedback, distortion, the occasional drum clash and the gargling lyrics of Bunkurs vocalist. Taking all the power that was held in that one riff played ad neausem in Bludgeon and draining the piece of all aspects of life, direction and meaning, Nullify represents a truly dark vision, and one which I have noted from other review sites - that is not welcome. At points, it's hard to catagorise this as even music, and in that sense, it truly achieves its goal of nullifying value and meaning - but does this make it good at all? It exists in that sort of unclassifiable zone of doom, where it is absolutely perfect in its design, yet almost not consumable because of it. I'll give it four, but really, ratings don't cut it with certain albums, and this is one of them. It's an experience nonetheless, and if you don't like it, maybe it's not the sort of album made to be enjoyed. Even if that is the case, it still deserves a listen, rather then total disregard as some reviews elsewhere have ventured.

renkls Bludgeon is quite the uncompromising doom piece, in that it does exactly what its title implies - bludgeon a riff into oblivion over the course of an hour. Feedback and noise elements are interlaced within the hour and five minute dirge of music that this album consists of - and it all adds up to an uncompromising, bleak and in all honesty, deadening atmosphere. Having heard this through a few times, I can say that there are far more unsettling soundscapes out there, but in its own punishing fashion, it certainly stands as individually unique. Could it have been shorter? Obviously. It could have been twenty minutes and reflected the same atmosphere in that time, as well as taken 45 less minutes to consume. Even putting aside the deadening length, there isn't much to make it memorable or stand out from many other albums of its expansive genre. But for what it is, you certainly can't say it doesn't achieve what the title 'Bludgeon' implies.

renkls Similar to its predecessor in being a single track rendition of drumless doom. This time however, it's not focused on agony but ecstasy. It's also mercifully shorter then Victim One: Agony in being 52 minutes instead of 76. I will address a few little points of interest/niggles I have with this work. There are parts which sound like we're overhearing an orgy in some seedy downtown brothel, underneath the fog of a slow grating guitar rhythm. There hasn't been too much sound change between this and 'Agony' either. Maybe, just taking a stab at things, but this release deals less with the 'pleasure' associated with ecstasy, and more with juxtaposing the sensations of the pinnacle heights of pleasure with the darkest, cruelest aspects of pain. Sometimes in the music it sounds like both sensations at once, which I don't believe is an accident. Consequently, as I listened, I was reminded (like with 'Agony') of Naked City's Leng Tch'e. The cover art of that release, graphic though it was,was said to have been of a devastating impact on Georges Bataille, who included said photograph in Tears of Eros. He is quoted as thus:

"This photograph had a decisive role in my life. I have never stopped being obsessed by this image of pain, at once ecstatic and intolerable. I wonder what the Marquis de Sade would have thought of this image, Sade who dreamed of torture, (which was inaccessible to him) but who never witnessed an actual torture session. In one way or another this image was incessantly before his eyes. But Sade would have wanted to see it in solitude, at least in relative solitude, without which the ecstatic and voluptuous effect is inconceivable. What I suddenly saw, and what imprisoned me in anguish — but which at the same time delivered me from it — was the identity of these perfect contraries, divine ecstasy and its opposite, extreme horror. And this is my inevitable conclusion to a history of eroticism." — Georges Bataille.

Here, I feel this same concept is being driven home, albeit in a more sexually, physically draining fashion. I hadn't believed this was possible, whilst Leng Tch'e was based in agonies that are almost unimaginable, here the aspects of pleasure are addressed as being not as far from pain as we may hope for. In this way, I feel it is a fittingly difficult album, and one that I initally misunderstood. But by Vonn's motto of 'Doom through torture through doom', I understand now that they are presenting an intensely difficult listening experience as well as many allusions which bring up more unsettling questions. Listening through it again, I think that I understand the founding 'act' that this piece of music is based in, being that of either sexual abuse or rape. I may be incorrect in this assumption, but by the subtraction of 'human' musicality only to be filled entirely, by merciless near atonal guitar, I get the impression that Vonn is juxtaposing a physical act of 'amoral'/'inhuman' torture with a physical act of pleasure. But I cannot be certain, and this is treading dangerous moral grounds that make this album incredibly niche. Not only because it is a very limited self released effort - but the concept that underpins the entire 52 minute piece is very grim and menacing. Like with Agony, it does get deadening and repetitive, as time progresses and we stew longer in this mixture of torturous ecstasy, but I think for a once off experience of Vonn, this is likely a bit more accessible then their debut - though requires patience and an active mind. There is a lot at play that can be pondered, probably enough to easily last the albums length.

It is uncompromising (with the exception of the last five minutes which is the calmest Vonn have ever been; the aftermath perhaps?) and hopelessly dark. I would venture that it is less nihilistic then its predecessor in that it seems to have a much clearer motive - yet we are still drawn into a puerile cycle of guitar torrents where every chord seems drenched in suffering conditioned against the respective ecstasy of the vocalist/s. I may be exaggerating, but in the right environment, this album can be both confronting and highly valuable pondering material. That environment is most certainly not in your parents presence, I will tell you now.

renkls I've probably spent more time with this album then any (sane) person should. That said, I think now I understand all I need to understand about it. I have a distinct fascination with single track albums, and this being one, thought I should try it out. It is probably the darkest audial assualt I've heard, bar none. It probably surpasses Orthrelm's OV and Naked City's Leng Tch'e in the department of difficult listening, but it is probably in the aspect of artistic vision that I feel this album does not meet the previous two mentioned. It is huge, powerful, abrasive and almost completely inhuman. According to an interview that VONN had with a website (the only one on the internet I could find), they are practicing what they feel is 'true' doom metal. Being completely hopeless, remorseless, painful music. And in that respect, they get their point across indelibly. That said however, look at the length of the album - 76 minutes of singular, torturous noise. This is one of the longest single pieces of music dedicated to CD, but there is no real way to justify just how huge and monsterous this album is. In foresight however, we must realise that the central theme of the 'song' is torture. We have to, if we chose (obviously), go along with their uncompromising demands if we truly want to understand. After all, torture is not an act where the victim (listener) has a choice of how brutal or long the ordeal lasts - and while we as an audience have the ability to leave anytime, the victim does not until the bitter end. Of course, 76 minutes of drumless, pitch black misery is a long ask of anyone - and this is where some comparisons have to come into play. Torture as transposed to music has been done many times before. Naked City, in paving the way into the distinctive genre of Drone Doom Metal established the genre on this theme, with Leng Tch'e, a 31 (less then half this albums length) minute examination of the notorious chinese torture method. The screams that emerged in that piece were dark, uncompromising and harrowing. It builds, escalates upwards into a truly cacophonous noise of squeals and screams, before the victim finally perishes. It was a bleak, hopeless work - but its influence on the genre of doom metal has been felt far and wide. Vonn's Victim One: Agony, feels like it has taken influence from the direction of doom, yet has not expanded on the concepts of bleak hopelessness and suffering in any way except length. In that respect, it cannot measure up to the same scale as these influentual albums in my opinion. But they're not exactly the same journey - while Leng Tch'e established the genre, there has still, despite it being limited, progression from this idea. It is no longer a progressive, building work. There are no established patterns or tunes to cling to. It strips the genre bare as a truly bleak portrait of nihilistic cruelty. It approaches being completely unlistenable. It was a daring move to extend and push doom to its inevitable, meaningless conclusion, yet this is what I feel VONN have done. And for that alone, despite my indifference, I appriechiate the audacious viciousness of this CD. Do I plan on listening to it very much? No way.

renkls This was probably the first funeral doom album I heard, and I'll admit, it took me a while to get into. I'm no stranger to slow paced music, but the heaviness, mixed with the fact I still had unprepared eardrums for the heavier side of music meant it took me a solid half year to fully appriechiate this work. But it was worth it, I'll admit. As a fifty two minute journey centered on the creation of the universe, it's ambitious, heavy and powerful. It could have been shorter, yes. But doom, let alone funeral doom, is all about the atmosphere, which this album holds in spades. I've learned that this is quite 'lite' funeral doom in that it deals with less grim concepts and has far more upbeat instrumentation in the form of piano, as well as variations in speed and structure that most doom is not gifted with. As a debut, if you don't mind slow, heavy and simple riffs - cased within a single song structure, and have the patience and time to let it surround and engulf you, then you may have found a fantastic album. If you're not patient, then it's not the album you'll want to hear, but give it a try regardless. You may be very surprised how good it is.

Warthur The Sword's debut album Age of Winters is a credible piece of retrogressive doom metal which will please most fans of Black Sabbath, Budgie and other early practitioners of doomy, fuzzed-out proto-metal. The band's dual guitar lineup allows them to add a bit more complexity to their material, so the end result, whilst quite true to their influences, also sounds different enough to give them their own musical niche and an appeal which extends beyond the mere nostalgia which less capable retro-doom bands sometimes slip into pandering to. As evidence that this style of proto-metal has a future decades after its original inception, Age of Winters is compelling stuff.

Kingcrimsonprog Sixty Watt Shaman are a Stoner Rock/Metal band from Baltimore Maryland. Seed Of Decades was their second full-length studio album and was released in 2000. Singer Dan Soren is also known for his work with the Doom Metal band The Mighty Nimbus.

The band approach the music by delivering the fundamentals of classic 1970s rock music and applying them through the filter of Stoner Rock. The resulting sound isn’t just Kyuss-worship like some of the less original Stoner bands settle for and not just a gimmicky classic rock nostalgia album either, but a mixture of the two influence sets that ultimately makes something more satisfying.

If you like Clutch, then this is a band that you really need to check out; they have toured with them, they thank them in their linear notes and have even recorded together, such as Sixty Watt members guesting on the Pure Rock Fury album. On this album Clutch’s singer Neil Fallon provides guest vocals on the song ‘The Trip’ and their drummer J.P Gastor also provides guest percussion on the final track ‘I’ve Been Down.’

Simply working with Clutch isn’t the whole story though, the band also share a lot of sonic similarities as well. For an example, listen to the slow and groovy ‘Low Earth Orbit’ with its background keys and John Bonham influenced drumming and it is hard not to think of Clutch’s Robot Hive Exodus material. This isn’t to say that ‘Shaman are just a Clutch rip-off or anything, they have their own personality and bring their own ideas to the table too, its just that if you do like Clutch’s sound then you’ll probably like Sixty Watt Shaman a lot too.

Sixty Watt Shaman have a great sound that is sure to appeal to fans of the Classic Rock and Stoner scenes; the only real negative accusation anyone could throw at them is that some of their stuff gets a bit samey, but then again while a lot of the album does follow the same sonic formula, there are a few brief moments of the trippier side of the Stoner Rock (think early Monster Magnet), some acoustic stuff and a few moments of a speedier and punkier sound on there too which all adds a bit of variety to the proceedings, so the problem isn’t that pronounced.

Highlights include ‘Red Colony’ which mixes big fat Stoner riffs with a laid back yet grand approach, the fast and fun ‘Devil In The Details Part 1’ and the excellent bluesy album closer ‘I’ve Been Down.’

Overall, Seed Of Decades is a pretty enjoyable album and Sixty Watt Shaman are a pretty enjoyable band, especially if you like the Stoner music scene and Clutch in particular. I highly recommend both the band and the album if this sort of music is usually something that you enjoy.

Warthur Some of the dronier doom metal bands are able to take sparse, minimalistic riffs dragged out for an ungodly length of time and somehow manage to avoid the monotony or boredom which might otherwise be associated with such music, finding ways and means of making their ambient metal endlessly fascinating. Earth's second album is a good example of that, and I understand a lot of people think Sunn O))) pull it off. But Om? Maybe they are able to do it, but they don't quite manage it on their debut album. Then again, it's nice to see Al Cisneros of Sleep return to the music scene at all after his absence.

Warthur Reverend Bizarre worked on a lot of material in the course of planning their next album - releasing, in the process of doing so, the Harbinger of Metal and Return to the Rectory EPs, both of which were as long as full-length albums but were relegated to EP status because the band weren't satisfied with them. To be honest, I think they did Harbinger of Metal a bit of a disservice, because it seems to me to have the edge on Crush the Insects, but Crush is a perfectly decent album in its own right. Leading off with two uncharacteristically up-tempo numbers for the band, it soon reverts to their usual super-slow doom metal mode. Not a classic on the scale of its predecessor, but far from an embarrassment.

Warthur The reunion between Candlemass and Messiah Marcolin may have been brief, but it did produce one of the band's best albums. Right from the opening Black Dwarf, you can tell that this isn't one of the band's darker and more serious albums - how grimdark can you really be with lyrics like "hate fiend on dope"? - but the sheer sense of fun the album brings to the table is irrepressible. Even though the reunion wasn't to last, the gang are clearly happy to be together if only briefly for one last bash and the end result is doom metal which is crunchingly heavy but at the same time ridiculously catchy.

Warthur Reverend Bizarre originally recorded this one in 2004, decided it wasn't good enough for a stand alone release, and slapped it onto a reissue of In the Rectory as a bonus disc. To be honest, I think they made the right call there; the material on here just isn't up to the excellent standards of albums like In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend, or even the Harbinger of Metal EP.

In both those two earlier recordings, the band show a brilliant level of judgement as to exactly how long to sustain their long, dirge-like riffs, how minimalistic they could make their songs, and in general just how far they could push their purist doom metal aesthetic before the results ceased to be interesting; here, they go a bit too far, with the compositions crossing the line from dirgelike to boring. Don't bother with the standalone release; if you must get it, buy one of the reissues of In the Rectory which include it, then at least you're getting a five-star album alongside this one.

Warthur Pentagram's history post-Be Forewarned has been a troubled one, to say the least. With the lineup disintegrating, Bobby Liebling and Joe Hasselvander kept going as a two-piece, and whilst Review Your Choices was a genuinely impressive album and one of the band's best, the following Sub-Basement was a bit more uninspired. Then even Hasselvander left behind Liebling, leaving the Pentagram frontman to eventually make this album with Internal Void putting in instrumental duties.

A cursory look at the track list reveals the first major issue with the album: seven of its ten tracks are re-recordings of old material from the legendary Pentagram demo tapes. Pentagram fans will most likely have superior editions of most of this stuff in the form of the First Daze Here compilation (and the sequel if they're feeling completist about it), and the fact that after two or three decades Liebling is still reliant on recycling this old material suggests an almost unbelievable lack of inspiration. Of course, most Pentagram albums from the 80s onwards have included at least a few of the 70s tracks, but that's the other part of the problem - all the best songs have already been rerecorded on previous albums, leaving Show 'Em How with the dregs.

The other issue with the album is that Internal Void just don't put in a particularly good performance - they appear to lack enthusiasm and don't really do the old material justice. One wonders whether they were excited or interested in the material at all; I kind of suspect they only took on the project out of pity for Liebling, whose personal life and public behaviour were deteriorating at this point. Either way, with instrumental playing which isn't at a Pentagram standard and a selection of songs which represent Liebling scraping the bottom of the barrel, Show 'Em How shows a band in crisis.

Time Signature Infearnatural...

Genre: psychedelic doom metal

Italian space doomsters Ufomammut are back with another slab of crushingly heavy psychedelic doom metal.

After a spacey and atmospheric intro which slowly and materfully builds up power and intensity, slowliy leading the listener into the dark and doom-laden psychedelic scenario that characterizes the entire album, in the form of the almost 14 minutes long 'Empireum', 'Auerum' kicks in with a slow and lumbering doomy riff accompanied by spaced out effects (which also figured in the intro), and when the drums and the riff proper are initiated, there can be no doubt that we are dealing with heavy doom metal with a touch of psych and a touch of noise (in the form of a heavily distorted bass).

True to the genre, the songs on Oro take their time in building up, and repetition of heavy riffage is an overarhing feature of the album, as is the use of sudden changes from one slow pace to another with the occasional detour into more uptempo, but no less bleak and oppressive, passages. It's simple,, but absolutely crushing and heavy. 'Infernatural' petty much continues down the same road as 'Aureum', subjecting the listener to slow and heavy sections characterized by bleakness and a minimalistic dark psychedelia. 'Magickon' takes us back into more atmospheric terriitory, slowly building up towards heavy and doomy carnage, and is, with its 7:57 minutes of running time, the shortes track of the album, and 'Mindomime' follows a similar pattern.

While the music on this release is mostly instrumental, Oro does feature vocals, but these are kept quite low ni the mix and panned out so as to have a more atmospheric effects than serving as the central carrier of melody. This, of course, contributes to the generation of bleakness, which is already very strong due to the focus on repetition and the absence of lead guitars and any other overt carrier of melody. It all reside in the riffage, the heavy drum beats and the heavily distorted bass.

Let's face it Oro is not for everyone, and I think that even some fans of doom metal might find it challenging, but if you like heavy, spacey and bleak doom metal with lots of oppressive psychedelia and a focus on repetition, then chances are that Ufomammut's latest album will be right up your alley.

(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)

Warthur When you put out 74 minutes of music on a CD, most of the time you call it an album. Not so Reverend Bizarre, who chose to describe Harbinger of Metal as an EP. I suspect this is part of the band's painstaking devotion to quality, refusing to ascribe the album status to only their most significant efforts. Whatever you call it, Harbinger of Metal is still a very respectable doom metal album - perhaps not as monumental as In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend, but still a top-notch doom piece, particularly for its brilliant cover of Burzum's Dunkelheit which manages to both capture the spirit of the original and stay true to the band's doomy approach at the same time.

Warthur Electric Wizard is dead, long live the Electric Wizard! With the rest of the Mark I lineup abandoning Jus Oborn after the acrimonious recording process of Let Us Prey, people were already writing the band's obituary, but Oborn was able to bring together a new lineup to create a new and intriguing album which reassured listeners that Electric Wizard were back on the right course.

The band's well-known fascination with cult pulp fiction and campy horror movies from yesteryear has thankfully survived the lineup change, and indeed seems to be pushed to the fore on this one, and on top of that the band seem to be playing more of a playful and fun style of doom metal than previously, adding a little groove to their formula and generally showing more energy than the massive, lethargic riffs of Dopethrone. The Electric Wizard which produced classics like that album and Come My Fanatics is gone, and We Live is convincing evidence that we're not going to get it back - but this new Electric Wizard is an interesting prospect in its own right.

Warthur Spiritual Beggars represent an extreme version of a tendency that often irritates me in stoner rock - the tendency for stoner bands to become full-on nostalgia acts trading on people yearning after a cartoonish parody of the 1970s. Of course, there's plenty of retro-doom and stoner bands out there who build their sound on the precedent set by Black Sabbath and other bands of the era, but Spiritual Beggars are one of a set of bands who are utterly uncritical in what influences and ideas they taken from the hard rock groups of yesteryear - and in failing to be selective, they create a tasteless gruel of the blandest and most dated sounds of the decade.

Conor Fynes 'A Rose For The Apocalypse' - Draconian (7/10)

Draconian may have been the first doom metal band I ever got into. Although I had already experienced the powerful fusion of 'extreme metal' and melodic melancholy through bands like Opeth, Draconian's debut album 'Where Lovers Mourn' presented to me a different side of metal, one that took the tempo to the pace of a funeral march, with a dreary tone to match. Although doom is in no short supply of bands, and Draconian was certainly not the first to innovate this well-worn sound, they were the band who broke me into doom. In the years that have passed since then, however, Draconian have certainly changed their sound, to one that would not have been nearly as refreshing to me back then, but possesses as much emotional resonance as they always have. 'A Rose For The Apocalypse' continues Draconian's path towards a less obscure, and more harmonious sound. While the progressive and emphatic polish of Draconian will leave a weak taste to some, the band continues to mature and develop.

The death-doom category generally does not have much room for bands to separate from one another stylistically, without throwing away the label altogether. All the same, there is a significant development from their early material and this. Most notably, the band favours a much cleaner sense of production than they have in the past, and certainly in comparison with their first record. When you factor in the grief-filled growls, melodic guitar riffs and emphasis on epic composition, it's easy to joke that Draconian and Swallow The Sun are the same band, and that was the first thing I thought when hearing 'A Rose For The Apocalypse'. Regardless, this is not necessarily a bad path for Draconian to go down. As the incredible opener 'The Drowning Age' demonstrates, there is much potential for that feeling of epic, emotional impact that Draconian have always seen fit to deliver.

The vocals are structured around the often-used 'beauty and the beast' dynamic; that is, the contrast of pretty female vocals and a male growler. I have often found this gimmick to fall short and tread 'pure cheese' territory, although Draconian don't do a bad job with employing it. Lisa Johansson's voice is pure and the melodies she sings are stirring. As expected, the instrumentation is nothing to show off, but 'A Rose For The Apocalypse' feels very well produced and professionally performed. Where I feel that 'A Rose For The Apocalypse' falls off the wagon a bit is simply in the repetitive nature of the ideas on the album. That's not to say that any of these songs repeat themselves into monotony; the songwriting here is excellent. Rather on a hollistic album basis, it's difficult to be surprised even two or three songs into the record. Besides some ambient violin and an occasional mellotron, it becomes slightly difficult to maintain interest in what Draconian are doing by the end of the album, if only for the fact that these songs sound so much the same. Granted, there has never been a great deal of variety in their work or doom in general, but with the slightly more song-oriented, upbeat and produced nature, 'A Rose For The Apocalypse' feels like it runs in circles. On a song-by-song level however, Draconian are making some of the best death-doom out there.

UMUR "In the Devil's Days" is the 2nd full-length studio album by New Zealand doom metal act The House of Capricorn. The album was released through Swamps of the one Tree Hill in October 2011.

The band site artists like the badass doom/goth rock/metal act Babylon Whores, the ultra doomy and melancholic Type O Negative and the stoner/doom metal fathers of Black Sabbath as their main influences and that´s more than audible in the music on "In the Devil's Days". Heavy doomy riffing coupled with more groove based doom/goth rocking metal and a melancholic atmosphere. The two opening tracks "All Hail the Netherworld" and "Les Innocents" speak loud of the music style and diversity on the album. The former being a hard rocking doom metal track with a catchy chorus while the latter is an ultra doomy and very Type O Negative influenced song. The band seamlessly go from one music style to the other and make it work well within the context of the album. You´re never in doubt that it´s the same band playing.

The album is very long with it´s 72:55 minutes long playing time, and it´s an album that takes time to fully appreciate. The long playing time is necessary though as The House of Capricorn generally write rather long tracks. The shortest (excluding "Canto IV" which works like a shorter interlude) tracks are around 5 minutes long while the longest track on the album ("Horns") is a 14:04 minutes long beast of a track.

The band are well playing and the organic sound production brings out the best in the music. Paired with strong songwriting those elements make "In the Devil's Days" quite a great listen and I´d say a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

Warthur Let Us Prey is the messy and confused sound of Electric Wizard Mark I disintegrating. Luckily, chaos and disintegration is a pretty decent aesthetic for a doom metal album, so the band are able to put in a pretty reasonable performance, even including piano on one track in order to broaden their sonic palette a little. (And Jus Oborn's vocals have more effects on them than ever, to the point where it sounds like he's drowning in the crisis consuming the band.) But on the whole, it's nowhere near the standards the band had proved themselves to be capable of when they weren't caught up in bickering.

Warthur Question: just how slow can traditional doom metal get and still be recognisably traditional, Sabbath-inspired doom metal of the Candlemass/Electric Wizard variety as opposed to drone metal? The answer, as it turns out, is pretty damn slow indeed, as Reverend Bizarre prove on their debut album. But the Reverend should not be mistaken for advocates of slowness for the sake of slowness - their compositions do occasionally kick into gear, and it's a great deal of fun when they do so. The long, languid, glacier-like slow sections in their compositions are integral to evoking the atmosphere of lethargic melancholy they require, and they summon it masterfully.

Buyers may wish to note that most recent CD issues of In the Rectory include as a bonus the EP Return to the Rectory - in fact, for a long while this was the only way to get a copy of Return to the Rectory, until it finally got a standalone vinyl release in 2011. But I'll review that one on its own page when I come to it. As for the main event itself, it's an absolute classic of traditional doom metal, standing as proof that masters such as Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus, Electric Wizard and good old Black Sabbath themselves hadn't yet explored all the possibilities of the subgenre.

Warthur Is the term "Sub-Basement" meant to put is in mind of "the bottom of the barrel"? Because that's what Bobby Liebling and Joe Hasselvander are scraping this time around. Their second album as a two-man Pentagram suffers from a very basic problem: they had really, really good material on Review Your Choices, whereas Sub-Basement's songs seem to be of a lesser order. The performances are tight enough, but Hasselvander isn't really called on to do anything particularly interesting and Bobby Liebling's vocals don't even seem to convince Bobby and so have no chance of winning the listener over. In short, Sub-Basement captures Bobby and Joe on an off-day. Review your choices and listen to the previous album instead.

Time Signature As it is written...

Genre: progressive death-doom

Who says death-doom can't be progressive? Well, My Dying Bride has always been progressive and avant-garde in their approach to the genre, and the same applies to Barren Earth's "The Devil's Resolve" which combines a lot of different elements from a wide range of musical genres within and beyond metal.

The tracks are kept at mid and heavy paces, and even the slightly faster passages in 'The Dead Exiles', for instance, and more groovy passages that you hear in 'Oriental Pyre', for example, appear quite heavy and doom-laden. Barren Earth is a band that is full of contradictions - at least on this release. Their music is heavy and dark, but rich in melody and has plenty of broad appeal. Contrary to the band's name, their music is in no way barren rich in layers, arrangements, impression and expression - and "lush" is much more fitting than "barren" (then again "Lush Earth" does not sound very metal, does it?).

A large portion of this lushness derives from the progressive approach of the band. Not only are they very eclectic, they also make use of the occasional odd time signature and their use of synths and synth effect is not unlike the spacey keys and organs featured on many progressive rock releases from the 70s.

My only beef with this album is the vocals. They are mostly growled, although clean singing does occur frequently. The growls sound very Åkerfeldt-esque (so those who are disgruntled with the latest Opeth album could turn to Barrent Earth instead), and I wonder if a more melodic singing style wouldn't suit the lush metal music better.

In any case, "The Devil's Resolve" is an impressive progressive doom-death album that has the potential for broad appeal to fans of as diverse bands as Solitude Aeturnus, Paradise Lost, Opeth, Amorphis, and Sorrows Path.

Warthur Church of Misery play an ugly, sludgey, fuzzed-out style of doom metal with lyrics that are absolutely obsessed with serial killers - aside from the great Blue Oyster Cult cover on this album, that is. With regular snippets of news reports about the killers they sing about and, at one point, the words of the infamous Ed Kemper himself, it's certainly a uniquely disturbing listen, and whilst I think I'd find their schtick wearing for album after album for this short and sweet release it's a lot of fun. Some listeners may find the subject matter off-putting but if you're cool with it and you like Sabbath-inspired doom metal it's a good pick.

Warthur Goatsnake are essentially what became of doom metal legends The Obsessed after lead singer Wino (also of Saint Vitus fame) jumped ship, the band rebuilding themselves as an even grimier, dirtier, and doomier propositon than they were when Wino was still with them. Nowhere is this more clearly audible than on their second album, the masterful Flower of Disease, which sees them lay down thick, sludgey, stoner-influenced riffs in tribute to - who else? - Black Sabbath. It might not be the most original or groundbreaking prospect ever, but as far as fuzzed-out doom metal in the nostalgia vein goes, it's really very good.

Warthur Electric Wizard's monumental classic of doom metal absolutely drowns the listener in some of the heaviest riffs ever recorded. Any slower and we'd be getting into drone metal territory; as it is, the band expertly judge the balance between slower sections and faster and livelier workouts.

Jus Oborn's fuzzed-out vocals call out from deep in the mix like he's emerging from a thick fog (or weed smoke), and Bagshaw and Greening as the rhythm section are almost completely upstaged by Oborn's lead riffs. Just listen to Funeralopolis and tell me the guitar on that - particularly when things really kick into gear, after Jus is done coughing on a joint in the intro - doesn't sound like the sky is falling.

The best version of Dopethrone to acquire is the recent reissue, which adds the live workout Mind Transferral to the running order - unlike most bonus tracks applied to albums, this one fits in perfectly with the rest of the material here, and the subtle addition of the concluding sample from the original album to the end of Mind Transferral is a clear sign Oborn considers it to be an integral part of the Dopethrone experience. But whichever one you get, brace yourself, because a doom metal experience like no other awaits you when you sample these deep tokes from Satan's own bong.