Blood Ceremony - Living With the Ancients (2011)^{Release ID: 8968}

Blood Ceremony have beem one of my favourite bands since 2008 and the release of their eponymous debut, a record that arguably helped springboard the current (possibly overdone) trend of female-fronted occult and psych doom metal. This, the follow up to that terrific debut, kicks off in suitably occult style, with it's paeon to Pan the god of nature, being dominated by a soaring Hammond Organ.
The doom metal aspects of Blood Ceremony do play second fiddle to the more psychedelic, wiccan aspects of their sound, but I maintain that they still have enough of a presence to consider this a metal record, especially My Demon Brother and Oliver Haddo. Personally I have no problem with the more psychedelic leanings of the band, being a bit of an old psych-head myself, I like to hear a good, heavy slab of old-fashioned occult psychedelia with some Hammer movies-style demons and witches imagery thrown in for good measure. It must also be said that Alia O'Brien is a great musician, her vocals, keyboards and particularly her flute playing are distinctive and add a dimension to the music that others in this field lack.
Whilst I acknowledge that many of the metal fraternity are unwilling to claim BC as one of their own especially since the releases aftere this are definitely a lot more psych rock than metal, I've got to say that it's their loss as they're turning their back on a great band.