Doom Metal

Cathedral – The Last Spire Review

Cathedral – The Last Spire Review

“So this is the end of the road for Lee Dorrian’s long-running psychedelic doom experiment. Looking back on Cathedral’s career, they’ve certainly delivered some entertaining, diverse albums while helping make doom cool and interesting again. While I always favored their earlier, less trippy stuff like Forest of Equilibrium and The Ethereal Mirror, their subsequent releases always had something worth investigating. So how does the ringmaster choose to lower the final curtain on his Carnival Bizarre? By returning to the beginning and re-introducing us to the raw, crushing doom that put them on the map in the first place.” Please remove your hats and bow our heads as we mourn the passing of modern doom giants, Cathedral. Steel Druhm will provide the eulogy and you’re all welcome to join us afterward in the graveyard for refreshments.

Memory Garden – Doomain Review

Memory Garden – Doomain Review

“I’m a sucker for the name “Memory Garden.” I love the classic Trouble song with that title and I’ve always appreciated this group as well. Part of the moniker love is due to having worked in a cemetery bearing that name during grad school (yes, Steel Druhm was a legitimate grave-digger), but the talent, class and polish of this outfit doesn’t hurt none either. These Swedes play a type of progressive doom that sounds like a mix of Candlemass, Memento Mori, Nevermore and Lansfear with some similarities to the material off Tad Morose’s classic A Mended Rhyme. Never too slow and dirgey, they infuse just enough traditional and power metal ideas to move things along and they bring an exceptionally high level of musicality to the table so everything goes down smooth as buttered silk.” Proggy, melodic doom should sound good to even the most attention challenged of metal fans. Even moss peeping, anti-doomers like AMG himself might enjoy the tasteful stylings of Memory Garden.

CROWN – Psychurgy Review

CROWN – Psychurgy Review

“Slow it a bit, tune it down, strip it of all its accents, hide the emphasis behind a wall of sonic venom and just let it go for an hour: Psychurgy will reveal its disturbing beauty in more than just one way. CROWN is a French duo and they don’t reinvent the wheel and likely never actually dared to think they could. If you’ve had the pleasure to get hold of their recent debut EP – The One, then you know these guys are serious when it comes to carefully handling their frequencies. Psychurgy is surely a step forward in terms of sound and composition: the repetitions are still there, the slowly violent love affair with drone continues to monopolise the dynamics and the sludgy aesthetics of a doom wandering away from metal is still a persisting presence.” Alex is on the job discussing French drone duo CROWN and their stubborn refusal to reinvent the musical wheel.

Moss – Horrible Night Review

Moss – Horrible Night Review

“Even attempting to articulate just how great a band Moss are at what they do is a fool’s errand. Not only is their sound crushing and brooding beyond any band I’ve ever experienced but every new recording they release seems like a blue-moon event that simply cannot be missed. Horrible Night, Moss’ latest album, was met with an equal amount of excitement to die-hard fans, me among them — anxiously waiting for the follow-up to 2009’s absolutely monolithic Sub Templum, which is one of doom/drone metal’s best releases bar none.” Noctus tells you whether or not it was worth not sleeping or eating for months to get his hands on the very first copy of Horrible Night.

Black Boned Angel – The End Review

Black Boned Angel – The End Review

“There’s no point in dancing around it – doom/drone is about as niche as niche gets. Unless you’re a serious enthusiast of bands like Earth (early material) and Sunn O))), it’s very likely that Black Boned Angel haven’t been a band on your radar, and with their latest (and last) opus, that isn’t very likely to change.” Drone is a mighty tough sell, but Noctus has his sales pitch ready and he wants to tell you why this is something special. Hell, this guy could sell spit to Geoff Tate!

The Moth Gatherer – A Bright Celestial Light Review

The Moth Gatherer – A Bright Celestial Light Review

“The guitarist plays his guitar while high on meth-infused beer, plugging the guitar cable into a meth-powered amplifier and stomps on the pedal incessantly with the enthusiasm of a little kid playing Dance Dance Revolution at the arcade. The drummer prefers rhythmic consistency to speed; the bassist wears an invisibility cloak even as he hits low notes that causes window panes to reverberate, giving away his presence; the vocalist sings about life’s saddest moments (boo-hoo v.v). Finally, there are also calm, acoustic interludes that serve as breaks between heavy passages.”

Victor Griffin’s In-Graved Review

Victor Griffin’s In-Graved Review

“As a long time fan of American doom pioneers Pentagram, I’ve been an admirer of Victor Griffin’s playing and his bluesy, but street tough style. Sure, he borrowed a lot of his sound from Tony Iommi, but he made it his own by mixing it with the sound of Cream-era Clapton and a touch of Hendrix. When he left Pentagram, their stock dropped precipitously, and when he returned for their Last Rites opus, everything was right in the doom world again. I enjoyed most of the material from his Place of Skulls outing, so when I heard of the new Victor Griffin’s In-Graved project, I expected solid results, which this delivered, along with a few surprises.” Doomy biker rock? Does Steel Druhm need to say more? Well, he will anyway because he’s wordy!

October Tide – Tunnel of No Light Review

October Tide – Tunnel of No Light Review

“Steel Druhm is a sucker for well done doom death with oodles of morose, melancholy atmosphere. Yep, I like stuff that makes me feel as if I’m slowly drowning in an ice cold Finnish lake as wood gnomes and forest elves cry and throw Mardi Gras beads into the water (just go with it, don’t analyze). Because of these predilections, I heartily enjoyed the last opus from this bunch of downcast Swedes, which featured several members of Katatonia at one time or another. After some line up changes and a few years away from the game, October Tide skulks back with Tunnel of No Light and it’s business as usual (that business being depressing but darkly beautiful music).” But is the business as successful as before? Steel Druhm splashes about and does his best to answer that very question.

The Fall of Every Season – Amends Review

The Fall of Every Season – Amends Review

“It’s probably best you let go of every possible expectation of this record that you may have had, because this album simply won’t meet them. Stylistically, anyway. The Fall of Every Season,, the moniker of Marius Strand, has decided to change the idea behind the music so far beyond recognition of his dreary, depression-filled beginnings, that Amends sounds like a completely different band, thank goodness.” Noctus would like to explain this album to you in loving detail, but first he requires you to clear your mind. That means stop thinking of food and sex too!

Kongh – Sole Creation Review

Kongh – Sole Creation Review

Quite an epic album. The fuzz is there in all its imperfect majesty, while the pace is as slow as ever, bringing back the doom where it belongs: in the realm of repetitions, through think layers of narcotic sounds. Overall, the final result is a solid evolution from the psychedelic throes of Shadows of the Shapeless, but whoever (well, everyone) says that Kongh sound like Yob is right. And yet they’re wrong at the same time [Oh God! Which is it!? AMG], since the sound these three lost souls from Nässjö and Småland (that’s southern Sweden, for the most curious nerds amongst yourselves) seem to enjoy touching on the likes of Alice in Chains (“Skymning”), Mastodon (“Sole Creation”) and Brooklyn’s own Tombs.