Doom – Page 102 – Wonderbox Metal

Dea Marica – Curse of the Haunted (Review)

This is the second release from UK Doom merchants Dea Marica.

They play sorrow-filled down-beat Doom Metal with a maudlin pace and sombre melodies. If you use a band such as My Dying Bride as a starting point you’ll be in the right area stylistically, but Dea Marica don’t sound like cheap knock-offs as the melodies and structures of their songs are not the same.

Vocally they have extremely brutal growls that are deeper than the blackest pits of Hades, but they mainly use clean, almost operatic vocals that are impressively realised and contribute a lot to the depth of the songs.

The album sweeps you along in its emotional embrace and forces you to come face to face with all of those small, dark things you’ve been avoiding thinking about for years. The epic melodies and exquisite vocal harmonies rub shoulders with the guttural vocals and heavier riffs and the band switch between the two seamlessly; sometimes it’s a sudden change and sometimes it’s a gradual build up, but either way the general mood is retained and the song is a winner.

It should also be mentioned that this is also a very catchy album full of hooks to grab the listener, albeit in a down-tempo Doom Metal way. You’ll be wanting to play these epic songs again almost as soon as the last chord has faded.

This is a haunting, dark and memorable album. Highly recommended.

The Wounded Kings – Consolamentum (Review)

This is the fourth album of Doom Metal from UK band The Wounded Kings.

The Wounded Kings specialise in slow, meandering Traditional Doom Metal with towering guitars and backing sounds. The album cover sets the mood; blackness, smoke and obscure symbols. When the vocals kick in they sound like they are coming from somewhere behind this protective layer of fog, tempting the listener into the blackness beyond. But don’t go. Oh no. You don’t want to step into their world. Her vocals entice and chill, echo and fade. Drawing you in and leading you away.

The album has the feeling of the occult, and the music has a ritualistic, droning quality to it that’s entirely disarming. You could listen to the thick, weighty guitars for an age, until it’s entirely too late. For everything.

It’s with feelings of oppression, foreboding and mystical expectations that the songs develop. They do this naturally; unhurried and unforced. There is, after all, no rush. No rush at all. What else do you possibly have in your miserable, worthless life that’s worth doing? No-one is waiting for you, no-one wants anything from you; simply surrender to the siren calls and give in. You want to see what’s in the dark, behind the smoke, right?

Music to be afraid to, and to be afraid of.

Hear The Silence here.

Dead – Idiots (Review)

Australia’s Dead are an unusual beast, consisting as they do of just a bassist and a drummer. The noise they make is somewhere between Punk and Sludge, with more variety than you might think for only having two instruments.

Starting off creepy and atmospheric; when the bass kicks in you can feel it like a physical presence.

There’s plenty going on in these songs, including vocals from multiple people, to keep things interesting.

As the bass and drums are the only instruments they are left bare and exposed for everyone to see with no opportunity to hide what’s going on behind other instruments; due to this the duo have risen to the challenge and ensured that they are always doing something interesting.

This is a dredge through the darkest recesses of forgotten filth, but in the best possible way. The minimalistic Sludge the band come up with and the variety of ideas and delivery on display is a recipe for success in my book.

Favourite Track: Murder Hollow. Creep-tastic.

Lune Kiri – Demo (Review)

Lune Kiri are a Post-Rock band from the US and this is their first release, containing 4 tracks at 35 minutes in length.

This is winding and exploratory, and pleasantly relaxed. Lune Kiri already seem to have mastered the art of mood and texture, and this EP would be really impressive if it wasn’t their first release, let alone the fact that it is.

Sometimes the meandering, wandering guitars paint a glorious picture and they sound so liquid you can almost imagine the brush sweeping them over the canvas. Other times they play heavier, murky, dirge-ridden riffs that want to suck you into their world. Stockholm contains both types in its 15 minute playing time.

My only real “complaint”, (and it’s not really a complaint), is why they called this a demo. The songs are so accomplished and the sound quality so good that this is essentially just a first EP. Apart from that head-scratcher I would advise anyone who likes bands like Red Sparowes, Pelican, Cloudkicker, etc. to immediately run to get this.

Towers – II (Review)

Towers are a drum/bass duo from the US that play Sludge/Doom.

The band experiment with just these two instruments to create a minimal yet expressive sound that has quite a Prog feeling to some of it that’s refreshing.

The vocals are kind of shouted/spoken for the most part although softer cleans do appear. These are almost incidental to the actual music; almost an afterthought. They serve their purpose though and add texture to the rumbling bass.

There is a hypnotic groove to songs like The Door at the End of the Hall that makes you feel like you’re being carried off to the lunatic asylum in a haze of delirium, while The Chosen is ominously apocalyptic and could be the soundtrack to the End of Times. Bolstered by effects and haunting vocals this track is very impressive.

Overall Towers have their own character and a very individual sound, which is to be appreciated when they’re hitting you over the head with a colossal bass presence that feels like a piece of sheet iron.

See what you think.

71TONMAN – 71TONMAN (Review)

This is the début album from Polish Sludgers 71TONMAN, and they’re as heavy as their name suggests.

Drenched in feedback with rhythmic pounding drums and samples – this is how it starts and I already know it’s going to be good. Then the guitars kick in and the tortured, anguished vocals and you remember why Sludge is just such a damn good genre.

If you cross bands like Eyehategod, Crowbar, Charger and Humanfly then you’d end up with something similar to 71TONMAN. In other words, pure class.

The songs are imbued with a sense of the post-apocalyptic. They weave tales of other worlds and places in with the chunky guitars. It’s all very, very invigorating; take a couple of these songs three times a day and call me in the morning.

The vocals are quite varied, with deeper, higher and almost-cleans all in the mix. It all sounds great.

This is an excellent release from a band with much talent. Make sure you support them and visit their world.

Descend Into Despair – The Bearer Of All Storms (Review)

Romanian band Descend Into Despair have released an epic album in every sense of the word – there is 92 minutes of music here, all piled into 7 songs.

I love a good piece of album artwork, and this one is great. It’s not necessarily any reflection of the music of course, but it did make me excited to listen to this band.

The songs are long and based around slow, atmospheric funeral Doom; each track winding and rolling further down into misery. The singer espouses his existence of suffering and gloom through deep growls and haunted clean vocals.

The guitar-based melodies and riffs are slow and moving, but for me it’s the added keys and effects that are the real emotional drivers. They weave in and around the songs like ghostly dancers swaying to their own tune, adding depth and longevity to music already full of mood and feeling.

Feelings of fragile mortality and heartache infuse this album and every second is spent pulling at the heart-strings and introducing melancholy and sorrow.

This album can hold its head up high and rub shoulders with the best of them; with bands like Eye of Solitude and Descend Into Despair releasing high quality music like this the depressive funeral Doom scene will not want for leaders for some time.

Indian – From All Purity (Review)

Indian are from the US and play Sludge Metal with added Noise; this is their fifth album.

This is Sludge of the most vicious, harshest variety. These six tracks assault the listener with guitars as heavy as icebergs and enough dissonant noises to floor a bear.

The crawling, abrasive sound leeches all of the warmth from the air as the feeling of cold, impersonal, urban bleakness saturates the sound waves.

The onward march of the devastating riffs is relentless and disturbing. Had the band limited itself to this it would be a monumental attack, but with all of the feedback, squeals, pops, crackles and noises that accompany the songs at just the right level of intrusiveness they are transformed into even more unapproachable entities than they would be without these additions.

The vocals match the intensity of the music, coming across as the bastard mutated offspring of a twisted three-way between the singers of At The Gates, Khanate and Iron Monkey. As impressive as it is harsh; the vocals are as unrelenting as the music they screech over.

If you’re tough enough to survive this aural onslaught then there’s no reason not to return to this again and again and again. Crushing.

Culted – Oblique To All Paths (Review)

Culted comprise of members in both Sweden and Canada, (who apparently have never met), and this is their second album of Blackened Doom Metal.

This is an hour of haunting depression and wandering desolation.

This album combines aspects of Doom, Black Metal and Sludge to create a bleak atmosphere and feeling of slow decay. An aural description akin to a gradual slipping away into who knows where; a place of fear to never return from.

You know a band means business when a 19 minute monolith of a song, (Brooding Hex), is their opener. It also works as an abstract for the album as a whole as it surmises all areas that the full album travels to within its forbidding boundaries.

There is no clinical, sterile recording on this release; instead we have a dark and foetid sound, full of shadows that hold spawning grounds for unspeakable strains of mutant bacteria and other unpleasantness.

The rasping vocals are rooted in Black Metal, and they sail the seas of Blackness on the good ship Doom. Continuing the nautical theme, (for no good reason really), this is music to drown to.

The wide range of sounds and instruments used on this album means that this is a diverse and experimental release. It’s an interesting path that the disparate band members have collectively chosen to tread, one which carries great risk but which promises great reward in turn. I heartily invite you to sample the dark delights on offer here. But be warned – there’s a danger you might not come back.

Sunn 0))) & Ulver – Terrestrials (Review)

This is a collaboration between Sunn 0))) and Ulver, both well-respected artists in their own right. This is a worthy collaboration resulting in brilliance.

The first track Let There Be Light starts off slow and minimalistic, with a lone saxophone forlornly reaching out from a fog. It builds up and up until the only real way to describe it is to use words such as epic and cinematic. So there we are – epic and cinematic music.

Second song Western Horn is an ominous journey through dark corridors where the lights have all been smashed by persons unknown, for reasons unknown. It’s an eerie place and even though you suspect that you can sense salvation just on the edge of your hearing the overarching feeling of black despair is weighing down on you. You end up crawling through the maze of abandoned doorways crying to yourself, hoping that someone will save you and fearing that they will not. This song sounds like that.

The third and final track Eternal Return is a lengthy foray into ghostly melodics and features the only vocals on the album. Feeling like a twisted, warped version of Laura Palmer’s Theme by Angelo Badalamenti from the Twin Peaks soundtrack; it evokes similar feelings and drips hypnotic beauty.

An album for lonely nights. An album for sleep’s dark embrace.