The Epic Doom Metal Thread

Crypt Sermon - The Stygian Rose (2024)

I've been absolutely loving this new Crypt Sermon album as their sound continues to change shape ever so slightly with each release. Out In The Garden was a well performed mirroring of classic Epic Doom Metal production and songwriting, whereas the followup The Ruins of Fading Light brought more Heavy Metal influence to the table with a mix that feels more filled out and a larger scope in terms of atmosphere and song progression. I'm sure to some people's dismay, The Stygian Rose strays even farther from its Traditional Doom roots by bumping up tempos of tracks like "Down in the Hollow" and "Glimmers in the Underworld" and leaning into a more aggressive vocal delivery that leaves most of the brooding spoken word style behind. The rest of the album is their traditional Epic Doom fare, with "The Scrying Orb" acting as the ballad to break the album up a bit and the ultimate epic "The Stygian Rose" incorporates a ton of atmosphere without the need for interlude tracks. Sure, The Stygian Rose is far from a classic and despondent Doom Metal experience, but I'm personally loving all the Heavy Metal influence as they still manage to keep a ton of emotion and atmospheric storytelling intact without it feeling overwhelming. I think this is vocalist Brooks Wilson's strongest outing yet, but I'm definitely biased towards the more Heavy Metal style here. Solid work as always from this unlikely supergroup, which consists of members from Horrendous, Vektor, and now Obsequiae with the addition of their new keyboardist.

^ Gonna review this, too.

I am still a MAJOR noob to the world of epic doom.  I have a little experience in its parent traditional doom, but I'm not even familiar with the works of Solitude Aeturnus, Doomsword, Solstice or Krux.  Having said this, the reason I decided to listen to this today was because I finally have enough room in my top 2024 albums chart for another metal album to potentially make the top 30.  I'm trying to keep it at a 20% max, so as to ensure I explore other genres heavily.  It's been a terrible time trying to expand on it, but thankfully, my saving grace for the day have been that Twikipedia album and new live albums by Can and Yes.  On top of that, checking the charts, it looks like "epic doom" isn't really known for a grand scale of variety among its more popular groups.

Now I just read that the difference between traditional doom, which is bent in more heavy metal and blues influence. and epic doom is the theatrics, which gives this brand of doom more room for an otherwise opposite genre: US power metal, which is much more energetic.  The Stygian Rose makes a point of letting you know that it plans to make the most of energetic theatrics five seconds in, and the riffage is not only impressive, but the progression of each song is both interesting and easy to follow, even when songs change pace.  I mean, it's totally easy to fall in love with that gothic black guitar tone at the beginning of Down in the Hollow.  The stronger changes seemed to be more apparent with each track, such as the tempo changes with Heavy Is the Crown of Bone.  I was just utterly soaking in the combination of traditional doom, funeral doom, USPM and some doses of gothic and black, as well as the progginess of track four.  But the variety itself wasn't the highlight, but the COMPOSITION.  These guys are utter PLAYERS.  Crypt Sermon manage a lot with the album's average runtime.  There are completely hypnotic elements like that synthy beginning to Scrying Orb, which is one of multiple examples of how crystal clear the album's production is without the overpolished reverb of studio necessities.  This is especially handy considering that the band plays with atmosphere the further along the album goes.  Take the noisy yet heavenly funeralism of the closing title track's intro for example.  I have to be honest: that's one of the finest example of composition, aura, produiction and technique I've ever heard in 2500+ metal albums.

And let's talk about the lyrics.  During The Scrying Orb, I noticed something: these guys are about as good at delivering lyrical imagery of other worlds and realms without sticking fully to tradition as Blind Guardian.  I mean, take Imaginations from the Other Side and Mirror Mirror.  Rhyming anyone?  Crypt Sermon aren't as upfront about the experimentation with melody here, but they know how to keep things engrossing on all levels.  Take the line "Blessed be the green lion, the green lion that eats the sun, to see through Orion where two hearts will beat as onе."  I'm just getting customized flashes of ancient walls with highly detailed hieroglyphs moving to the story.  And thankfully, this guy has a totally appropriate voice for both the energetic bits and the atmospheric bits.  I honestly like his voice much more than Messiah Marcolin's.

I've been pretty excited about 2024 this year, even to the point where I feel like I'm overrating albums because there are so many albums this year that completely fit my standards for perfection.  So in my effort to ensure that my reviews are founded on knowledge, I have to ask myself, "how do I know that this album isn't essentially copying another epic doom metal band that I haven't yet heard?"  I think it's a 100% valid question considering that I made the dumbass decision to listen to a 2024 album for a genre I've only heard like 5 albums for, especially since most of those 5 are early Candlemass.

So I'm just going to go based on my standards across 2500+ albums, assuming that's at least enough by this point: I loved it.  There was not a single millisecond I wasn't completely behind.  It might be a bit too diverse for the general traditional doom metal album to really be seen as an epic doom classic, but if Coagulated Bliss is seen as a modern grind classic no matter how many genres it plays with, that I'm going to go by the standards I set up for myself and ask the four questions.

1. What is the goal of this album?  It seems to be a further exercise in Crypt Sermon's growth as a band by once again differentiating their sound from the previous album.

2.  Does the album meet its goal?  100%.

3. What does the band sacrifice or neglect by meeting this goal?  Honestly, I don't think it really neglected anything except maybe standard epic doom behavior, if I'm to believe the RYM track listings.  I guess if I had to compare it to other doom albums, one technicality that isn't quite a flaw but isn't quite as good as another album in this regard is that its variety, while perfect for the album, isn't as wide-ranging as Idolum or The Dreadful Hours.  But it still works perfectly for the album, which pretty much states that there was no real sacrifice if the goal was to expand.

4., Are the sacrifices and negligences made up for by other aspects of the album?  If the above indeed was a sacrifice, then I have to say that in the end, this album is the kind that can probably attract a variety of metal fans by staying true to the band's spirit.

All in all, I just have to call this one of the greatest doom albums I've ever heard.  On my list I'll be putting this at #244 on my list of perfect albums between Peter Gabriel's So and Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert.  This makes the album my #2 metal album for 2024, my #6 2024 album period as well as the seventh 100 for 2024 that I've given.  Haven't had a year like this is a long time.

Smoulder - Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring (2019)

Smoulder are a five-piece formed in 2013 and centred around married couple, guitarist Shon Vincent and vocalist Sarah Ann. Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring marked the band's debut full-length and followed their well-received three-track demo, The Sword Woman, which supplied two of the six tracks featured here.

Musically the album skirts the border between epic doom and good, old-fashioned heavy metal, tinged with a pinch of USPM. They lean more towards the triumphal heroicism of Solstice's brand of epic doom rather the more mournful laments of, say, Solitude Aeternus with the tempos of most of the tracks edging towards the pacier end of the doom metal arsenal, never really dropping to the ploddingly mournful pacing more common of most doom metal albums. The downtuned guitar and meaty bottom end still sit this within the doom metal sphere, though, with only a couple of tracks, "Bastard Steel" and "Voyage of the Sunchaser", edging into heavy or power metal territory and both of which are riotous, fist-pumping headbangers. The riffs on display throughout are solid and project vitality, power and strength, whether galloping at pace or hulking at a more sedate pace. The riffs are more than capably bolstered by a tight-knit rhythm section of drummer Kevin Hester and bassist Adam Blake, both of whose work is neat and effective. The leadwork of both Shon Vincent and second guitarist Collin Wolf is confidently done, with some fine solos that are expressive and exhilharating without ever leaning towards the self-indulgent.

Inevitably, though, the main focus of attention is going to be vocalist Sarah Ann Kitteridge whose powerful pipes are perfectly suited to the more epic style that Smoulder are going for. Like a female Messiah Marcolin, her voice soars above the instrumentation, demanding the attention of the listener. This is no slight on the rest of the band members, but her voice does project such irresistible power that it is impossible for it not to become the focus and luckily she has the talent to carry off such a central role, never wavering or losing pitch which, unfortunately, I hear all too often nowadays from vocalists operating outside their capabilities.

The songwriting is generally of a high quality and is split between most of the band members, with only Adam Blake not contributing, which allows for some nice variation, yet illustrates the band's unity of vision as the tracklisting is very consistent. Lyrically, they fall back on the well-worn metal trope of sword and sorcery epic fantasy storytelling for the most part, with opener, "Ilian of Garathorm" delving into an old epic metal staple, Michael Moorcock's world of Elric and The Eternal Champion.

Overall this is a well-executed slab of triumphalistic metal that reaches back to the earlier days of the genre, yet is still refreshingly exciting and vital and should appeal to anyone who still loves the power and glory of epic metal storytelling.

4/5