Review by Sonny for Morag Tong - Through Clouded Time (2016)

I have been a fan of London's Morag Tong for a good decade now, since the release of this debut. four-track EP back in 2016. They are named for the fictional guild of assassins featured in The Elder Scrolls game Morrowind and their reverb-drenched doom metal is as influenced as much by stoner metal as you would expect from a band of RPG-ing nerds. My original one-line review for this went "stoner doom that's nice 'n' slow and as heavy as an anchor strapped to an anvil that's tied to a millstone" and you know what, that remains true, but there is actually a bit more to it than just sheer weight so I thought I had better elaborate.

The riffs have an in-built bluesiness that reaches back as far as Sabbath's debut but which are delivered with such heft and distortion that they sound mountainously and crushingly heavy. The soloing, such as it is, has a psychedelic, spacey tinge that is fed from the band's stoner roots and which is aided by some Hawkwind-ish electronics buried quite deeply in the mix. I hesitate to call it trippy, though, because the tempo is so lethargic and the riffs just so fucking heavy that I am unsure if anything with this amount of heft can ever be labelled as such, although the title track "Through Clouded Time" does feature some quieter, more trippy moments, such as the introductory couple of minutes or so which almost sounds like a very heavy version of Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross" and a quite funky bass breakdown just after the halfway point. The two tracks either side, "Godhead" and "The Eyes of Men" are a bit more straight forward but deliver such devastatingly heavy doom riffs that they are still worthy of attention in their own rights.

Drummer Adam Asquith also handles vocals which are perfectly functional for this style of stonerised doom, whereas his drumming is really good within the confines of the genre and he and bassist Sam Lewis both featuring prominently enough in the mix to lay down a super-solid foundation upon which dual guitarists Alex Clarke and Lewis Crane can lay down the towering monoliths of the riffs. The four are obviously deeply steeped in the world of stoner doom and they sound like solid technical musicians perfectly able to translate their intentions into music, so there is a definite authenticity about what they delivered here.

In summary, this is a very impressive twenty-three minutes that handed out an attention-grabbing calling card to the UK's doom metal afficianados. Unfortunately I felt 2018's full-length "Last Knell of Om" failed to live up to this promise and I have yet to hear 2023's Grieve, so this stands as the band's high water mark for me so far. Truth is though, even if they never bettered this, it would still stand as a worthy testament. I was then and remain still, mightily impressed.