Fortress are from the US and play Doom Metal. This is their début album.
This is Doom Metal with plenty of heaviness and bite.
Slow, colossal riffs ring out from the speakers, slowly trying to drag you into oblivion. I do like a band that knows how to play at a glacial pace.
The growled vocals sound like a howling daemon rising from the pit to swallow you whole, whilst the marginally less-deep vocals remind of the singer of Cathedral with a rougher voice mixed with the singer of The Meads of Asphodel.
This is Doom with an undercurrent of Sludge running through the waste pipes. There’s a wildness to Fortress that doesn’t need taming; it’s part of their innate appeal.
Feedback-laden, dirty and unkempt; Fortress remind of Grief, only with longer songs, mixed with a band like Conan.
Chunky, heavy riffs power the songs and some of the guitar parts have a Stoner Metal vibe to them. Everything is played at a snail’s pace though, so both Stoner and Sludge influences ultimately get poured into the same drain that’s filled to the brim with DOOOOM!
For quality Doom that’s crushingly heavy and a vibe of total despair and loss, look no further than Fortess.
Favourite Track: Either Lies & Fears; Slow. Heavy. Miserable. Compelling; or The Nothing, with subtle, ethereal female cleans in the background. Haunting.
Eye of Solitude are from the UK and this is their latest EP. They play Funeral Doom Metal.
Eye of Solitude are a favourite of mine, and if you haven’t already you should definitely check out their début album Sui Caedere and their devastating follow up Canto III.
Dear Insanity is one single track lasting 51 minutes. As with the latest Inter Arma EP this is essentially a full length album rather than an EP. However, there’s no hard and fast rule for this kind of thing though. Other bands like Luna and Monolithe, for example, make similar releases and call them albums. And of course you have Reverend Bizarre’s famous “EP” Harbinger of Metal which is a whopping 73 minutes in length…
But onto Dear Insanity.
It starts off all ambient with soft and vaguely unsettling drone sounds. This lulls the listener into complacency and when the crushing guitars suddenly come thundering down on you just after 8 minutes it’s almost startling.
After this Eye of Solitude do what they do best; slow, crushing, emotive DOOOOOM! This is relentless and laden with colossal Doom riffs and vocals as deep as night.
At about the 15 minute mark we get a change, with brief respites added in to soften the mood before the misery begins once more; this time with increased atmosphere.
At 22 minutes subdued piano takes centre stage and really brings home the feelings of dejection and forlorn hopelessness. Subtle, soft, crooning vocals can also be heard at this point; like an echo of a ghost in the background. This is a very well-judged change of pace and works perfectly as a mid-album centrepiece that carries real emotional weight.
At 29 minutes the guitars are back like a long lost friend. The mood is one of solemn reflection and sorrowful realisation. The piano can still be heard playing softly alongside the tidal wave of guitars, with the two disparate instruments merging into a cohesive whole.
There’s another change at 33 minutes, with the music noticeably becoming more expansive and expressive. The atmosphere is really starting to build now, slowly and inevitably heading towards crescendo.
Another brief piano interlude happens at 36 minutes, allowing the emotional pressure to build with gentle coercion.
39 minutes in. The Doom riffs start coming on strong now and the guitars take pride of place in the ongoing avalanche of misery. This is the final stretch of the song and things are moving towards their fatal conclusion. The band start to ramp up the intensity, slowly, which brings us to the last few minutes of the song where all of the emotion has been felt, all of the despair has been used up and we’re left with a gentle feeling of hopelessness so soft that we don’t even realise how lost we all are.
I do love it when bands do work like this, and Eye of Solitude have shown that they can do it even better than most.
A colossal landmark of a release by a band who can seemingly do no wrong. Get this now.
Usnea are from the US and play Blackened Doom. This is their second album.
We’ve met Usnea before on their split with Ruins. This, coupled with their début album, (which is absolutely amazing, by the way), means that Random Cosmic Violence is an album that I have high expectations of indeed.
Usnea write riffs that are huge Blackened tsunami’s of tar and malevolent urges. This is Doom that’s as colossal as it is unfriendly. The Black Metal influence is still a definite part of their sound, albeit a little less closer to the surface on this release.
Multiple vocal styles of attack are present on this; from high-pitched screams, to bowel-shaking growls, to spoken word, to haunting cleans.
The interesting thing about Usnea is that their songs may be monolithic slabs of shaded darkness, but importantly they can write actual songs; the shortest track here is just over 12 minutes in length but Usnea have an exceptional ability to write songs that are catchy.
It may sound strange for a band like this, but the winding melodies really seep into your brain and it’s easy to find yourself humming along with the tunes. This was a hallmark of their début and they’ve carried this over to their second album with great aplomb.
The dark atmospheres that the band create are a pleasure to explore. Each track has its own personality, character and place on the album.
Everything about this album screams quality, longevity and depth. The songs draw you in and mesmerise. Even on first listen you know you’re dealing with a truly special album, and after multiple listens it’s confirmed; Usnea are just fucking brilliant.
What more can I say? If you like interesting, heavy music then this is essential.
This is the début album from US Doom Metal band Wolf Blood.
Wolf Blood play Doom Metal – a cross between Traditional Doom and Stoner Doom.
The tunes here are memorable and kicked out with obvious passion and no shortage of charisma. It’s a testament to the band’s talent that the melodies and riffs that the band perform sound both familiar and fresh; ancient yet vibrant.
A mix of Traditional Doom and Stoner Doom could theoretically have descended into the mediocre quite quickly but Wolf Blood manage to side step this pitfall by taking the best aspects of each. This has resulted in a collection of songs that have the power and majesty of Doom with the energy and drive of Stoner.
The band have a really warm, welcoming sound that embraces the listener with good feelings and Doomy vibes. It’s not too polished and keeps an underground feel but it does the band justice and the songs sound authentic and engaging.
There’s a lot to like here. Wolf Blood clearly know what they want to achieve and I think their début album succeeds in this.
Kвіти Знедолених Берегів is a solo project from Ukraine that plays Atmospheric Death/Doom. This is his début demo.
This is woe-filled Atmospheric Doom with deep growling and swathes of desolate feeling.
The singer has a very powerful growl. It sounds quite primal in its force and carries a strong presence against the backdrop of the mournful music. This is backed up by occasional spoken word sections which are also performed well and have a good place in the mix, as I find spoken word parts are usually too high when most bands employ them. Soft, low-key cleans also unexpectedly appear, greatly enhancing the already varied vocal package. Neither the cleans or the spoken word sections are over done though and the deep growls eclipse them both.
The music shows good composition and everything is played well. The dark melodies have an air of longing to them and really drive the music forward.
Both of the songs on this release slowly build their funeral dirge over the course of about 10 minutes and the winding, plaintive guitars have just the right tone to connect viscerally with the listener without becoming overwrought. Subtle keyboard/piano is used here and there to further add feeling and I like the style of songwriting in general; it’s mainly about heaviness, both musically and emotionally, but there’s enough subtlety and nuance here to satisfy fans of all tastes and preferences.
For what is, apparently, a demo release, the production is very professional sounding. Everything is balanced and in its place; everything sounds crisp and punchy.
I’m very impressed with this. Hopefully we’ll see a full album from Kвіти Знедолених Берегів in the future and if it’s even half as good as За небокрай мрій it’ll be very good indeed.
Temple of Void are from the US and this is their début album. They play Doom with an infusion of Death Metal.
Temple of Void’s 2013 Demo was a really enjoyable 3-track taster for the band, and this début full length takes those three songs, adds 5 more and results in Of Terror and the Supernatural.
Their sound is one of Doom Metal mixed with an Old-School Death Metal influence, which manifests in the faster sections, the deep vocals and the general air of rotting heaviness that the band exude with every diseased pore.
Opener The Embalmer’s Art is like a microcosm for the album as a whole. It has faster, gritty sections which are tempered by largely slow and Doom-y main parts and morbid, grim vocals. The guitar melodies are haunting, downright miserable and very, very powerful.
Somehow, even though this is only a début, Temple of Void have managed to produce a piece of rotten artistry that sounds as if it has taken decades to coalesce into being. The songs sound mature and so full of atmosphere and dark tidings it seems impossible that these are new songs and not long lost tracks from the vaults of Peaceville history.
Upon first listening to the album it sounds instantly welcoming and familiar without sounding stale or old-hat. Upon subsequent listens this feeling is reinforced and very quickly the album shapes up to be both an old friend and a stunning new discovery.
The vocals are deep growls that have an instant presence and charisma. Somewhat reminiscent of the singer of Opeth at his expressive, malevolent deepest; the singer of Temple of Void has a phenomenal bellow that really clears the cobwebs away.
I’m incredibly impressed with this. The quality of the riffs, the depth of feeling that they evoke and the whole structure of the songs in general speaks volumes about the talent of the band.
Crawling Death Metal-laced Doom has never sounded so good.
Algoma are a Sludge/Doom band from Canada and this is their début album.
Algoma play the kind of filthy, grim Sludge akin to the likes of Eyehategod, Fistula, Buzzov.en, etc.
The riffs are heavy and large and have the relentless inevitability of a slow-moving avalanche. Reclaimed by the Forest seems to be powered by these monstrous guitars, as if they have an energy all to themselves; self-generating and powerful enough to make everything else follow suite.
Vocally the singer has a voice that’s somewhere between a shout and a bark.
The band’s sound is murky and dense, as one would expect from a Sludge Metal group, but there’s a healthy amount of Doom to their style meaning they go slower than some similar bands.
At almost 42 minutes in length it doesn’t outstay its welcome and the infectious nature of the Sludgy guitars mean that it’s a good album to zone out to and become encased in the heaviness.
Each song is a smorgasbord of heaviness, crunchy guitars and bile.
Encoffination are from the US and this is their third album of Doom/Death Metal.
Now that’s an album cover. If you wanted a cover that said dirty, filthy and wretched, that’s what you’d go for. And they did. Top work.
Encoffination play a blend of Doom and Death Metal that is utterly miserable and carries a strong stench of decay around with it.
This is morbid, rotten Doom Metal filtered through an underground Death Metal influence. Incantation is the obvious reference, although imagine them slower, with a rawer production and sounding a lot more stinking than they normally do.
The band create a fully oppressive atmosphere that’s as all encompassing as it is relentless. The slow, Doom-filled riffs saturate the brain and lull the listener into a sense of foreboding despair that’s surprisingly comfortable to slip into.
This is a long album at just under 1 hour in length but the atmospheres that Encoffination create mean that you don’t really notice the passage of time. What’s 60 minutes compared to the glacial pace of geological time that it feels like the band use?
Slow, heavy and nasty. The palpable aura of desolation and woe is almost overwhelming. The band draw you in and drag you down into their world.
Inter Arma are from the US and this is their latest EP. Although calling it an EP is a bit of a stretch; at almost 46 minutes it’s pretty much an album.
Oh and did I mention that the entire running time is comprised of just one track? No? Well I have now.
I’ve not heard Inter Arma before, although I’m aware of them by reputation, so this is something that I was eager to listen to.
It starts off gently, with almost 3 minutes of soft, acoustic sounds, before the heavy guitars hammer down like Thor’s own wrath. Inter Arma play a highly talented form of Sludge/Post-Metal/Doom Metal. Ultimately it’s a Doom behemoth that takes in a variety of different genres and subgenres throughout the length of the song.
The Cavern is a very involving and captivating listen that has been masterfully put together with lots of thought to the weaving of the different elements into a complete tapestry of sounds.
Vocally, we get pretty much everything; cleans, semi-cleans, shouts, screams, growls; it’s all present and correct.
The song transitions through various phases and it’s complex and endearing. The band have invited a plethora of different guests onto the EP which only enhances the feeling of something truly special unfolding in front of your very ears. The guests all add something different, (female vocals, violins, synths), and their contribution is valued and integral.
The pacing and dynamics of this song are just astounding. This is the kind of Progressive Metal masterpiece that you always wanted Isis, Neurosis or Cult of Luna to do.
As the song progresses it takes in all available moods, from slow and despondent to psychedelic and expansive, to subtle and coy, to raging and tumultuous. This is an incredibly detailed journey into foreign soundscapes and as tour guides extraordinaire Inter Arma are well placed to blow your mind with their shockingly good display of songwriting. The performance and musicianship is flawless too.
Inter Arma take the Post-Metal template of the masters, (Isis/Neurosis/Cult of Luna), combine it with the extra-dimensional quality of Mastodon, layer it all in their own unique personality, add lots of individual flourishes and quirks and serve up scalding hot; The Cavern is here and it’s a delicious treat.
This is the début album from Italy’s Epitaph, only a mere quarter of a century or so after they first formed…
Epitaph play Doom Metal, Black Sabbath-style, with a decent amount of Heavy Metal thrown in. It’s ancient and grand sounding, with mystery and the occult bleeding out of every wicked pore.
Resolutely Old-School, this is nonetheless infused with vitality and interest as if fresh out of the mortuary. You can always tell a good album when you can quickly point out individual songs because each one has its own feeling or unique twist to the formula.
You can tell that some serious time and effort has gone into this album as each song has character and style. The album feels very complete and has a lot of personality to it.
The musicianship is at an advanced level, as is the songwriting, with the tracks being very well developed. Dynamics, pacing, hooks and melodies; all are here in abundance.
Each instrument is represented clearly, even the bass, and the subtle keys add further atmosphere to what is already a strong selection of riffs and song structures. The guitars are heavy and the beats are solid.
The singer has a strong voice that handles the tunes with ease.
Epitaph may have only just produced their début after such a long time, but now that they’re here they have the potential to become a force to be reckoned with in the Metal scene.
Let’s hope that this isn’t the band’s epitaph, and let’s hope album number two doesn’t take as long.
Fortress are from the US and play Doom Metal. This is their début album.
Wonderbox Metal 