AVATARIUM — Hurricanes and Halos (review)

AVATARIUM — Hurricanes and Halos album cover Album · 2017 · Heavy Psych Buy this album from MMA partners
4.5/5 ·
Warthur
The current "occult rock" scene is a musical subgenre based not on musical features, but on a witchy aesthetic; as such, bands working in this field can crop up in all sorts of different (but related) subgenres, such as doom metal (especially traditional doom), hard rock, and heavy psych.

Furthermore, it's not uncommon for a group to start in one part of this territory and drift to a different one over the course of their careers; Blood Ceremony did it, and now Avatarium have done it, with their latest album completing the transition from Candlemass-esque trad doom to heavy psych that was begun by the preceding Girl In the Raven Mask.

In particular, Rickard Nilsson joining on organ seems to have taken the band down a decidedly Uriah Heep-esque direction - especially audible on The Sky At the Bottom of the Sea - as well as enabling explorations of a sort of doomy proto-prog as on the extended workout Medusa Child. If you ever wanted to know what Candlemass would have sounded like if they had a top-notch female vocalist and had taken their lead from Uriah Heep instead of Black Sabbath, I guess you now have your answer: they sound damn good.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

Le bannissement Atmospheric Black Metal
CANTIQUE LÉPREUX
Buy this album from MMA partners
Tarantula Heart Sludge Metal
MELVINS
Buy this album from MMA partners
God Damned You To Hell Traditional Doom Metal
FRIENDS OF HELL
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Absence Melodic Death Metal
THE ABSENCE
Buy this album from MMA partners
Unextinct Technical Death Metal
HIDEOUS DIVINITY
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Fallen Ashes - Wage War (Official Lyric Video)
FALLEN ASHES
Bosh66· 8 days ago
EXISTENTIAL DEAD - Unreality (Single) 2024
EXISTENTIAL DEAD
Bosh66· 8 days ago
EXISTENTIAL DEAD - Cold Hands
EXISTENTIAL DEAD
Bosh66· 8 days ago
IRON MONKEY - Misanthropizer (Official Music Video)
IRON MONKEY
Bosh66· 10 days ago
??? (Losing ART) - "????" (Official Music Video) [HD]
漂浮者樂團
Bosh66· 11 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed