Hell (USA) - Hell (2009)^{Release ID: 9981}

There are a lot of bands I need to go through in order to get my top 100 right, many of which pertain to the slower genres I don't normally explore.  Having said that, I have many fond memories of a long-term sludge binge I had throughout 2019 and 2020, and I've explored some brilliant artists in that time.  One I haven't explored, however, is Hell, not because I'm Christian and I think I'll get possessed, but because it was also a doom and drone album, two genres I haven't ever obsessed over.  So, the Hell debut it is.

But the album was quite good.  Right from the opener, "Lethe," the music was crushing and monstrous, refusing to succumb to the lightning speed of typical metal and allowing the growls of the guitar to do all of the talking.  Sometimes the sludgy music rang truer to Candlemass and sometimes it had the experimental vibes of Nadja  I found myself almost hypnotized by its epic finale, "Maeror," which starts out with the almost industrial sounding "dark ambient" influences and continues on into an ever progressing wail of agony coming from the wild, and yet there's a musicality behind it much like an old record player delivering a requiem mass but drowned out by reverb.  In this instance the album Soundtracks for the Blind by Swans came to mind.

Despite its heaviness and its authentic faithfulness to the many genres it combines, I feel that the album itself doesn't really do anything that unique for the veins of metal it tackles.  Just that it's a good enough performance to recommend.  But for anyone looking to get into the slower genres, the Hell but makes for a very good start.  Chances are it may not amaze you, but it will likely entertain you if you like these genres.  I know this album makes me happy that I decided to explore more drone metal.  I'd say it's better thanthe last drone album I reviewed: Thaumogenesis by Nadja, and that was a pretty good album.