Obsessed, The - The Church Within (1994)^{Release ID: 7276}

The Obsessed seem to get spoken about in hushed tones (at least in my experience) as being this cult band in the world of doom that are often overlooked and/or underrated.  My limited listens to them over the years have not caused me to leap out of my chair with amazement and having discovered something amazing - not that I leap out of my chair much for anything nowadays.  As I continue my curiosity with doom metal as a whole I found myself looking at this release from 1994, their final one before their break up in 1995 according to what I have read although they have released an album in 2017 also as far as I can see.

The Church Within starts strong with album opener To protect and to Serve stomping early authority on proceedings with an unexpectedly upbeat tempo and dare I say hooky riff to bolster the memorability.  From there on in however I find the album to be very inconsistent.  The tracks are for the main part a bit staid and bordering on boring (thirteen tracks is an ambitious number to put out here) and the album relies heavily on flashes of brilliance - usually from the guitars - to do the bulk of the heavy lifting.  Neatz Brigade just meanders for nearly seven minutes without ever getting going proper and somehow Wino's mournful vocals and his gloomy riffs do not always complement one another.  I guess am expecting more of the doom and gloom but A World Apart places for the main at a frenetic pace for just a minute and thirty two seconds and goes absolutely nowhere at all.  It reeks of classic filler.

Listening through I get tones of Soundgarden and I do not mean just once or twice, I mean with a large degree of regularity.  Not a criticism as such (this is a nineties record after all) but an unexpected comparator for me.  It might be that the doom metal here is more stoner influenced and something is off in the recipe that throws in the grunge curveball; some may say it is an inexperienced doom listener hearing things that are not there indeed.  Overall, my experience of the album is disappointing.  Clunky song structures and fluctuating influence and pace make for a very inconsistent experience that although does not come off as disconnected as such it just feels wide of the mark in terms of the expected landing ground I was waiting in.