Sonny's Reviews

Ostensibly a Death Doom release this album is so much more than that. True, the majority of the album comprises a wall of sound of chugging, throbbing, tribalistic doom rhythms overlaid with inhuman death growls, but there are also lighter more progressive and even psychedelic passages that relieve and provide contrast to the crushing weight of the more doomy material. Most definitely one of THE metal albums of recent times and truly something a bit different in the oft-times stagnant-sounding doom scene. If you need convincing, then check out Nemesis or No Doom for the Wicked if you have any taste at all for extreme doom. Not for the fainthearted, though, clocking in at over 80 minutes this wil leave you in need of a stiff drink...

Heavingly sorrowful funeral doom, like the exhausted final breaths of some mortally wounded titan, waiting for death to take it. An image reinforced by the choral sections of last track The Silence at the End of Time as, seemingly, the end nears and the creature glimpses the angels come to escort it's soul to the afterlife.

Continuing on from where previous album RIITIIR left off, Enslaved cement their position as the premier progressive extreme metal band, occupying the throne vacated by Opeth when Mikael Akerfeldt left the world of extreme metal behind. The "trve" black metal afficianados may scoff, but Enslaved have always had more to offer than just blastbeats and demonic screams and in the last decade their albums have evolved beyond the restrictions of a single genre. Don't get me wrong, Enslaved were a great Black / Viking Metal  band, but now are so much more and, for me, probably the greatest metal band active today. This album is, as always, technically brilliant and the songwriting is complex and satisfying but still maintains the heaviness required for any top drawer metal release.

The three lengthy epics of viking / black metal featured on this early ep exhibit the quality that was required to allow Enslaved to be crowned as the worthy successors to First Wave legends Bathory. Faultless musicianship and complex songwriting have always been what make this band stand out in the black metal world and both are on display even at this early stage of their career. These three tracks strike an almost perfect balance between Viking Metal's sense of the epic and second wave Black Metal's aggression, resulting in my absolute favourite early Second Wave ep.

Intensely dark sludge metal from Floridians Ether Coven that, apart from a couple of quieter, more reflective tracks, is suitably aggressive. The riffs are huge and intimidating and the vocals are desperate and savage-sounding in the main. The drums sound quite busy, but are a bit too muted and their sound is dulled by the production. However, when it hits the mark, particularly with the two longer tracks, This House Is a Tomb of Memories and The Burden of Loss, it is very impressive, but that said, it is too long at almost an hour, for an album of this intensity.

This is the debut album from Guangdong Province's 殞煞 (a.k.a. Vengeful Spectre). Now I've got to admit to being fairly ignorant as to the extent and veracity of the chinese black metal scene, but if this is anything to go by, then it's got to be in fairly good shape. I don't want to sound patronising, but this took me completely by surprise and it fuckin' rips! Ferocious sounding, well-written melodic black metal that also incorporates elements of chinese folk music in a really organic way that works fantastically well. In fact, I really can't believe how superbly the folk elements work, but the tremolo nature of chinese strings is absolutely made for black metal and I've always loved the sound of those bamboo flutes anyway. The singer shrieks and screams his way through the tracks in a manner that must have left his vocal chords in tatters come album's end. I have no idea what he's singing, but it sounds amazing and I'm sure must be something to do with honourable battle and all that - just check out the cover (which is also gorgeous). It may be a little overproduced for black metal, sounding very clean indeed, but it seems a minor quibble to complain that it "doesn't sound shitty enough for black metal" when the music just works so damn well. These Chinese Rocks - and I'm hooked!

A relatively short album of lo-fi atmospheric black metal from Deorc Weg's solo BM project with a couple of his usual dungeon synth interjections thrown in for good measure. It's rabid and ragged-sounding and blasts as hard as the winter winds it invokes. Apart from closing track The Veil of the Wintermoon none of the songs are over five minutes long, so they don't get the chance to become too repetitive and boring, knowing just when to take their leave.

Dukatalon were formed in 2006 in Tel Aviv, releasing their debut album Saved by Fear in 2009 and it has taken the band eleven years to release this, the follow-up. This is my first exposure to the band and I've got to say this is a good record, ticking all the boxes for any sludge metal release - ultra-heavy, distorted guitar riffs, pummelling drums and harsh, angry-sounding vocals that reference the genre's hardcore beginnings.

I can't imagine there being many more pissed-off sounding metal albums out this year, yet it still mainains a degree of melody to the riffs that stop it descending into the realms of an incoherent rant. I particularly like the Middle-Eastern vibe that finally shows through on penultimate track Angels in Red.

I have no idea what the metal scene in Israel is like, but if this release is anything to go by then it is in fine fettle.

Grin comprises the husband and wife duo of Jan and Sabine Oberg (of german sludge outfit Earth Ship) and play sludgy doom with psychedelic overtones. It's fairly straightforward stuff, but it has satisfyingly groove-laden riffs, nicely underpinned by Sabine's driving basswork and Jan's forceful drumming. The vocals range from angry-sounding sludge yelling to echoing, melodic, psychedelic intonations. It is heavy without being overbearingly crushing and the psych overtones add a positivity to the album's atmosphere. If I had to describe it in a couple of words, I would call it space sludge, a melding of the vastness of space psych with a dense sludge core.

Northern Ireland's Elder Druid's debut is a five-track ep of down and dirty, sludgey doom that sounds as if it was conceived in a contaminated swamp rather than on the streets of Ballymena - and I mean that in a good way..

Ballymena's favourite doom metal sons' second full-length album is, in my opinion, a big step up from their debut, Carmina Satanae. Their tight, groove-ridden stoner doom is contrasted by Gregg McDowell's blackened vocals that sound more as if they are being torn from his throat than actually sung. These songs are veritable monsters, the riffs are huge sludgy slabs of doom over miles-thick foundations laid down by the bass and drums, that crush all before them mercilessly and leave a wrung out husk behind. Where a lot of doom metal mournfully reflects on loss, Elder Druid seek revenge for it.

With the surety and songwriting chops of a true veteran outfit, Kawir relate the tales of ancient Greece's heroes and legends in a proud, paganistic celebration of their country's Golden Age. Apparently Adrasteia was the goddess of female revenge and the album takes as it's focus the heroic women of the old myths. I am not familiar with the band's back catalogue (yet) so am unable to comment as to where this album sits within their pantheon (pun intended), but taken in isolation, this is a superior slab of pagan black metal in a scene flooded with wearyingly mediocre acts. Sure, it's more than capable of a good blast, but there is so much more to it than that - the epic opening of the album as Tydeus sets the scene of sweeping coastal mountains and ships loaded with armed warriors seeking adventure, the folk-ritual of Colchis and it's guest vocal from Wardruna's Lindy Fay Hella, to name but two.
Despite Kawir's veteran status, this is not a band merely going through the motions, but sounds inventive and vital and is obviously the work of master craftsmen.

This is the second EP released by this Quebecois Stoner Doom trio and is my first exposure to the band. It's three tracks tell a tale of a wizard's flight through the cosmos to face and defeat the dragons of a desert world and his entrance into the spirit world following his death after defeating the great drakes. It kicks of with a great slab of groovy, fuzzed-up doom in Ascendant as the wizard departs on his cosmic journey and already I'm well into it. Twin Suns' ten minutes is a more plodding affair, leaning more heavily on the stoner aspect of the band's sound as derived from classic-era Sleep, Saint Vitus and Electric Wizard as the wizard's dragon-slaying saga unfolds. Closing track Prophecy is a real builder, rising to it's climax as the wizard meets a bong-smoking monk and then passes into the spirit world as foretold.

Proper stoner shit this one, reminds me a bit of Ogre as far as the stoner concept release goes and if that's your thing (as it is mine) you probably won't go wrong with this.

I don't have a problem with blackgaze as such, but sometimes it just seems that the fruit has fallen a little too far from the tree. The high level of production, clean sound and alternative rock influences of this album are a bridge too far for me, I think. I can't shake the feeling that this is meant for people who want something a bit "edgy" to put next to their Radiohead and Green Day albums. Hipster black metal may finally have become a trend and what was once a scene for extreme outsiders has gone the way of all things. I don't hate the music as such, it has some OK moments and is very competently done, but I'm greatly saddened that black metal is just another influence for Grammy-baiters to weave into their tepid compositions. Maybe I'm just being a miserable bastard, and I've never considered myself to be Mr. Kvlt, but this shit used to mean something to people.

Whilst dropping the overtly celtic influence of debut album Heimweh, this still reveals it, albeit more subtlely, in the songs' melodies (except for the last half of closing track Endless Night which feels like a blackened Hogmanay celebration). The production is a little muddy for a black metal release with a fair bit of echo on the vocals. The songs are well-written, however and I do like the drum sound but, for me, disappointingly, this is a step down from the debut, an album I'm a huge fan of.

This debut release from UK black metal outfit, Crom Dubh is a terrific example of celtic-influenced atmospheric black metal. I like old-school "true" black metal as much as anyone, but I also love the newer, less spiteful sounding, wave of pagan, nature-themed so-called "atmospheric" black metal of which this is a particularly fine example. The trap this genre sometimes falls into is of becoming all-atmosphere and no song, but this album does consist of actual songs, rather than merely musical "pieces".

In places the album is even in danger of becoming "catchy" and the bagpipe-evoking guitar sound reminded me bizarrely of 80's celtic rock band Big Country. Probably not an album for the black metal purists, but if your more open-minded about your BM then give it a try.. what have you got to lose?

Let's get one thing straight, this album is not depressing. How can something that sounds so amazing be depressing? The only depressing music is bad music and this is most definitely not that. Sure, this conjures up a melancholy atmosphere and may thematically tackle depressing or morbid topics that the majority of people don't wish to think about, but that does not a depressing album make.
The songs are slow, with heaving guitar and growled vocals, but there is also a lightness to the melodies provided by the violin, subtle keys and the female vocals. I love this contrast in sounds between the abyssal and the angelic that really great funeral doom excels at and this pulls that off fabulously well.
Fallen, the opening track, serves as a kind of overture, introducing the themes the listener can expect to hear over the next fifty-odd minutes and setting up the rest of the album magnificently. Tracks like Quiet These Paintings Are and ...To Live for My Death... have some of the most heartbreakingly beautiful melodies contrasting and accentuating the sheer despair you feel in Pasi Koskinen's anguished vocals as he growls out his impending and irrevokable loss.
Ok, maybe I have made it sound like a depressing album, but this truly is an album that manages to find and express the beauty that can be found in even the darkest of places, gifting the listener a knowledge that there are others who understand these feelings, making it not a source of depression, but a flickering flame of hope for any finding themselves in the depths of despair.

Wolvsepent were a duo from Boise, Idaho, comprising drummer and violinist Brittany McConnell alongside guitarist and vocalist Blake Green. Aporia:Kāla:Ananta, despite its forty-minute runtime, is officially an EP and marks the band's final release as it appears the duo have now gone their separate ways. It consists of a single 40 minute track that blends drone metal, ambient, and classically-influenced passages. It begins with an ethereal and cosmic ambient prologue that eases us gently into the piece. As this intro subsides, it is replaced by a plaintive, lone violin which then takes on a degree of urgency with a busy, whirling refrain as it is joined by Blake's percussion and low vocal croons, building in intensity to a crescendo - and then a sudden stop. By now we are fifteen miutes in and the plaintive-sounding violin of earlier returns, taking us by the hand and leading us into a metallic hellscape of heavily distorted drones and feedback that follows, like a stringed Virgil chaperoning a horrified Dante through a drone metal Inferno.

This is where the meat of the piece resides, where massive chords drone at funereal pacing, transformed by huge levels of distortion and tortured feedback, sparse and sluggish drumbeats pound like percussive shockwaves and the vocals become deep heaving groans, as if issued by some suffering titan of the deep. This isn't to say that the remainder of the album is just a heaving homogonous drone, though, as the violin paints some lighter streaks within these lumbering sonic thunderheads, but the gravitational vortex at the heart of this is as heavy as anything you would expect from Sunn O))) or their ilk. The piece finally ends with multi-layered dissonant violin that sounds like a demented calliope trailing off to take it's tale elsewhere.

There is no doubt that Wolvserpent are not for everyone, but the imagination within their sounsdcapes and the sheer sonic devastation they can wreak with what is quite a spare instrumental pallette is extremely impressive. At times sounding fragile and ethereal, like it could just float away, at others seismically slow and mountainously heavy, as if threatening to tear itself apart, this is a piece that takes the listener on a journey through time and space on a search for some kind of spritual awareness. Definitely one of those that is worth putting the time in with. 

I was decidedly underwhelmed by Vin de Mia Trix' turgid debut, Once Hidden From Sight. This, however, is a completely different beast - and beast it is, with it's four tracks weighing-in with a combined runtime of almost 100 minutes (and I loved every one of them!) Using funeral doom as a foundation then adding elements of death and epic doom, quieter, almost ambient passages and even a couple of sections that sound suspiciously like Thrash to me! Don't let me give you the impression that this is just some scattershot approach, all these elements flow together naturally and the songs are artfully constructed, with a skill that brings to mind the masters of extreme prog metal, like (early) Opeth and Enslaved. This is epic stuff and, unbelievably, Hypnotic Dirge are offering it as "name your price" on Bandcamp (effectively free), so do yourself a favour and get on over there!

The first release from Scots Sluagh, a band featuring members of several Edinburgh metal acts such as Haar, Barshasketh and Of Spire & Throne who's remit is apparently to tell "tales from the ancient Highlands, a glimpse into a long forgotten past". This is no Andy Marshall-inpired celtic-themed nature black metal however, instead it sounds angry and aggressive, suggesting hard times and violence, rather than sweeping vistas of mountain tops and wooded valleys.

I find sludge to be the hardest sub-genre of Doom to get into usually, but this is one of the better examples I've heard so far. Darkly disturbing and brimming over with anger, this feels like the outpourings of a person who has known real adversity in their life. It's as heavy as f**k, yet remains focussed and doesn't lose sight of the need to perform actual songs, rather than merely becoming a directionless rant, as so many sludge albums seem to.

This first release from mysterious Poles, Mordenheim, is an EP consisting of a single 26 minute track. The production is DIY with an awfully muddy sound that makes the music indistinguishable at times, sounding more like a subway train rumbling through a tunnel than an actual song. This is a great pity, as it sounds as if, with a much better production, it would be quite a hypnotic track of droning death doom.

Ultra-heavy, pounding, sludgey doom with desperate sounding female vocals that make for a mightily impressive debut full-length. Surprisingly dark and bleak for a band that comes from somewhere as hot and sunny as Arizona. I'm sold!

Australia's Lovecraft-obsessed funeral doom merchants, Obed Marsh, switch their attention from The Shadow Over Innsmouth to The Dunwich Horror for this, their second album. Doom, particularly funeral doom, seems especially suited to conveying the atmosphere of lurking dread that is such a huge component of Lovecraft's literature and Obed Marsh make a respectful and respectable stab at it. Although I prefer the debut musically, this album's atmosphere is more fitting to the story upon which it's concept is based. In my opinion, this is a band who deserve far more credit than they have (so far) received.

This is a concept album based on the Shadow Over Innsmouth story by H.P.Lovecraft, a tale of the deformed and altered adherents of an ancient demon cult who inhabit a mouldering New England fishing town. The music is slow and brooding funeral doom with titanic riffs and shrieked vocals, that is a style I've been finding myself drawn to ever more in recent times. As far as the concept goes, I personally don't think the music particularly fits the story. The massive, glacial riffs and echoing vocals sound more suited to a story like Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, a tale of an ancient city of huge, cyclopean halls that echo to the long forgotten nightmares of some inconceivably aged alien precursor race. Saying that, though, the album does convey an unsettling feeling of unease and an inexplicable notion that there is something very sinister going on, just under the surface of our reality. I would say that, as a Lovecraft concept album, a worthy attempt and as a slab of funeral doom, a great success.

I've only really had a passing relationship with Swallow the Sun, I'm afraid. I quite enjoyed 2007's Hope and '09's New Moon even more so, but I never really "got into" the band like I did many other death doom outfits. Maybe, at the time, I considered them a little too melodic in a genre I love best at it's filthiest-sounding. Anyway here I am revisiting them and listening with fresh ears, hopefully.
The Morning Never Came was the Finn's debut album, released in November of 2003 and is indeed an album with a melodic take on the death doom formula. It is reasonably accessible with it's hauntingly charming synths and it's mournful riffs and may well appeal to metal fans looking for a gateway into extreme doom. The vocals aren't the usual cavernous, languid death growls, but are more forceful and urgent, ofttimes with a hint of a blackened shriek about them. I feel the album is at it's best when they manage to pull off the trick of sounding both melodic and apocalyptic at the same time, such as during the superb Swallow. The dichotomy this creates is extremely successful at portraying both beauty and it's destruction and the dynamic of life that means ultimately all must pass.
This is a great release by a band I will certainly be taking a lot more of an interest in now that I've finally got round to giving them the attention they rightly deserve.

After disbanding Celtic Frost on a musical high with the doom-inspired Monotheist, Thomas Gabriel Fischer formed Triptykon, a band who would continue to build on that style of metal. This is their second album and it's a bit of a monster, weighing in at well over an hour and embracing several different styles from doom to death to thrash metal and with a vein of Eighties-influenced gothic rock running through a lot of the runtime.

Tree of Suffocating Souls kicks things off in old-school Celtic Frost fashion, complete with one of Tom's trademark "death grunts" and a killer of a central riff. TGF has always had a unique guitar sound that is really well suited to either thrash, death or doom metal and it sounds awesome on this opening track, getting the album off to a great start. Next track, Boleskine House (the house that used to be the home of Aleister Crowley which was bought by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page in the 1970's) is a classic of eerie, gothic doom metal, featuring sublime female vocals from Simone Vollenweider. The out and out doom metal of Altar of Deceit is crushing, the uptempo, downtuned death metal of Breathing is punishing and any other cliches I can throw at them, except they aren't cliches if they're true.

Aurorae sounds like Killing Joke chilling with Billy Duffy and Andrew Eldritch after a particularly strong bong hit as the album's gothic content hits it's max and being a huge 80's goth rock fan, I love it! Demon Pact is doomy, but with a ritualistic atmosphere, created mainly by the drums, as if the band are trying to summon an ancient Babylonian demon. In the Sleep of Death is my least favourite track on the album, sounding a little bit cheesy lyrically, despite it's musical weight. Black Snow is a chugging behemoth, sounding like a slowed-down track from CF's To Mega Therion heyday, telling the tale of a dying tyrant facing up to his imminent demise. Waiting closes the album in a relatively gentle manner, with faintly weird triple vocals and an ethereal atmosphere.

So, a pretty great album with plenty of variety and songwriting skill from an extreme metal veteran, inspiring for all us old bastards out there!

This is the debut album from spanish black metal trio Grimah, featuring five tracks and a brief intro spanning 43 minutes. Thematically it's dense lyrics deal with nihilism and existential acceptance. Musically it takes the form of aggressive, yet fairly melodic black metal that verges on atmo-black at times (closer Péndulo de Agonía y Desdén for example). The vocals are atypical for a lot of black metal, being less shrieking screams and more like vicious barks. It is energetic and quite exhilharating, considering the subject matter and I'm interested to see where these guys go from here.

Haunt were formed as  a solo project by Beastmaker's Trevor William Church, but have since been expanded to a full four-piece. TWC in his capacity as leader of both Haunt and Beastmaker, has released a ridiculous amount of music in the last couple of years and, on the evidence of this, he needs to apply a bit of quality control instead of releasing every musical thought. This is uninspiring and unmemorable speed / heavy metal with the occasional hair metal-style song (complete with naff 80's synth). The bored-sounding vocals do nothing to persuade me otherwise, as if the band themselves aren't even convinced.

Yob are another outfit hailing from the fruitful US doom scene based around Eugene and Portland in Oregon and are centred around vocalist / guitarist (and founder) Mike Scheidt. Their sound is super heavy, sludgy stoner doom with extended jams that mesmerise and hypnotise then crush the listener like a reticulated python, before swallowing them whole.
2005's The Unreal Never Lived, the band's fourth album, spreads it's four tracks over 51 minutes and with the shortest being almost ten minutes they allow the songs to grow and mutate without ever deviating from the fundamental heaviness that makes them what they are. The lyrics are chiefly concerned with spiritual philosophy and the human psyche, typical stoner-related ponderings, although delivered quite aggressively considering the themes.
Musically, opener Quantum Mystic kicks off like a super-heavy version of Pink Floyd's One of These Days before morphing into what seems like Peace Sells... era Megadeth kicking out a doom metal jam. Grasping Air is a slower, more creeping affair, befitting the negativity of it's lyrical theme and Kosmos is a thundering starkiller of a song. The album culminates in the 21 minute monster that is The Mental Tyrant, a track that starts from steady, humble beginnings and evolves into a heaving beast, climaxing with a massive thrashy, sludge riff before fading away with a very weird chanted epilogue.
Whilst being somewhat ambivalent towards Yob's earlier output, I've got to confess to loving this album, far and away their best as far as I'm concerned and one of the best examples of stoner doom out there. An album for those who think Electric Wizard are pussies!

I believe this is the Portuguese duo's final release having now split and, to be honest, I'm not surprised. I don't know if this is a case of a band trying too hard to be edgy and intense, but it comes across as just so much sonic vomit.

Worship were a funeral doom duo formed in 1998 and based in Munich comprising Daniel "Pan" Vaross and Maximilien "The Impaler of Trendies" Varnier (aka Fucked-up Mad Max). They recorded this four-track demo in April of '99 and released it as a limited edition cassette via Max's own Impaler of Trendies record label. It was then picked up by Weird Truth and received another (very) limited cassette release. And so it would probably have ended, except that in June of 2001 Fucked-up Mad Max lived up to his name and proved that the isolation and melancholy expressed in his music was no mere aesthetic choice but something he lived every day, when he commited suicide by throwing himself off the Edmonton High Level Bridge. The ensuing notoriety ensured that the demo had several more widespread releases on both vinyl and CD and word soon got around.

So to the actual music! Sometimes it is hard to come to a release without any bias, especially one as notorious as this, but in the realms of funeral doom, this is about as authentic as it gets. The production isn't great, obviously as it was a demo recording, but that's not really too much of a concern in extreme metal, be it doom, black or any other type of metallic extremity for that matter. In fact, a rough, lo-fi sound can add a certain edginess or filthiness to a release that a cleaner production fails to deliver and is certainly the case here.

First track Whispering Gloom is an extremely well-written track and is probably the most interesting on the album, consisting of morbidly slow, sustained chords, Max's guttural growls and soaring lead work, which is then thrown into sharp contrast as the track pauses for breathe with a minimalistic spoken word section, before kicking back in, sounding even more desperate than before, the inate despair highlighted by a particularly mournful-sounding piano picking out single notes over the glacial central riff.

A personal favourite of mine is the closing track (of the tape version anyway), the eponymous Worship, a sheer titan of a track that crushes any clinging hopefulness out of the listener before album's end. It's first eight or nine minutes keep a grindingly slow tempo with Max's contemptuosly growled vocals counterpointing Dan Vaross' plaintive guitar tone. At this pont the bass seems to pick out a heartbeat and with the gently picked guitar builds a sense of impending doom, then heightened as the throbbing riff kicks in and the vocals return, but this time with a ritualised, chanted feeling, the track ending as Max growls prophetically "Kill yourself and worship".
 
The CD also features a bonus track, Keep On Selling Cocaine to Angels, which was released as Worship's side of a split EP with belgian grindcore act, Agathocles and features more of the same utter misery which is great to hear, although I do prefer the original tape ending with Worship's chaotic climax and Max's final line seems a fitting ending to such a seminal recording.

There are, arguably, few better examples of the true expression of funeral doom metal than Last Tape (or CD, or Vinyl) and it's unremittingly bleak vision, completely lacking in solace or, indeed, any positive emotion whatsoever. If you're adverse to introspection then you're probably best advised to steer clear of albums like this, but if you have no fear of gazing into the abyss then you really need this *record / tape / disc (*delete as necessary). Arguably the best doom metal demo ever released.

I'm guessing that Wolf Counsel have been heavily influenced by the likes of Hour of 13, Briton Rites and Seamount - the singer sounds very much like Phil Swanson and the meaty, heavy-riffing songs have also come out of the same stable as those venerable doom metal stallions. If you're doubtful then try the title track - doom metal heaven!

I loved Wolf Blood's debut, but this is a step up, the songwriting is better and the playing is tighter. It feels like they are a band really getting into their stride now. The first four tracks are played at quite a blistering pace for doom metal, yet are still demonstrably so. However, Story of a Drowning Man and Tsunami are where it's truly at (for me anyway). The pace is reigned in and we're back in more familiar doom territory, both tracks being allowed to build slowly to a crushing crescendo like, dare I say, a doom metal tsunami, washing away all before them. The dual male / female vocals are another masterstroke, complementing each other perfectly, then let's not forget the riffs that just keep on coming... and coming.

Named for the Soviet tank production facility at Chelyabinsk during WW2, this slab of Polish true doom is as heavy as any of the IS-2s that rolled off those Russian production lines. Four of it's five tracks lyrically mine the doom metal motherlode of WW2 itself, written from the points of view of nazi SS Officer and war criminal Joachim Peiper (Ostatni Sen Joachima), sailors in an arctic convoy being hunted by U-boats and stukas (Arkhangelsk), a german soldier being evacuated for leave from the front by plane (Lot do Kraju) and a U-boat crew facing unremitting boredom punctuated by spurts of sheer terror (Żelazne Trumny). Mir, the closing track, is a reflection on the effects of the collapse of the USSR on the millions of workers who depended on it for their living, musing on a symbol of that once mighty empire - the Mir space station.

The riffs are slow and heavy with slightly echoing vocals that lend the atmosphere a hopelessness that the doomed protagonists of the songs' lyrics face. There are more restrained passages, particularly during both Lot do Kraju and Mir where the desperation is replaced with a more melancholy resignation. Totalitarian is, however, mainly about crushing doom in the vein of a band like Monolord, although they particularly remind me of England's Witchsorrow, only with better songwriting. Any true doom-head should find this harder to resist than crack-infused Pringles!

Scald were a russian five-piece band that played epic doom metal (termed "ancient doom metal" by the band themselves) in a style derived from early Candlemass, but were actually more similar in style to UK outfit Solstice. This, their first and only full-length album has achieved legendary status amongst doom metal devotees, not only because of the tragic circumstances surrounding the band, splitting in '97 following the death of lead singer Agyl in a traffic accident, but also because it is one of the finest albums of that particular style of doom metal. I have also seen comparisons to Bathory bandied about and, in a weird way, it kind of holds water, certainly as an influence anyway.
Personally, I would put it only a notch below the aforementioned Solstice's New Dark Age and Candlemass' debut as one of my favourite slabs of epic doom. The production is not as clear and crisp as may be expected from this style of doom, but instead reminds me heavily of the production on Thergothon's Stream From the Heavens, with the keyboards playing a similarly important  part of the sound, in this case lending the album a triumphal, martial atmosphere and a muddy bottom end and drum sound. The riffs and particularly Agyl's earnest vocals are what really puts the epic into this doomed beast, though. I can well imagine Agyl not being at all out of place as the vocalist for any number of power metal bands but, thankfully, he diverted his efforts into doom instead and, it must be said, was a unique voice in the field.
The songwriting is also superb, with every track being memorable enough to stick in the mind long after the disc has finished spinning, none of the songs becoming samey or boring, despite their length. I find I'm discovering something more every time I play this amazing record and it is one that I find myself loving even more as time passes. This is one of the seminal releases in the realm of doom metal and any devotee really should get hold of a copy (personally, I paid €27.00 for a copy of the Wroth Emitter CD and think it was worth every penny!)

Uncompromising sludgy death metal that purports to "detail the exploits of a mythic beast undergoing change in its most raw form." It's lyrics are certainly blood-soaked and merciless (there's even a lambasting for the climate change deniers and those who are unconcerned about it in the words to Burning Earth). Overall an aggressive and exhilharating ride on this death sludge beast - just be careful you don't fall and become trampled underfoot!

Proper old-school Sabbath-Worshipping Trad Doom turned out from the mould that produced Reverend Bizarre, Krux, Seamount and their ilk. Heavy as shit, great songs, decent vocalist - could be my favourite Belgian doom album!

Skepticism were formed in 1991, releasing a death metal 7" in 1992, before a change in sound resulted in them, along with fellow Finns Thergothon, being credited with the development of funeral doom metal. In 1995 they released their debut, the seminal and oft-praised Stormcrowfleet album.

This, their follow-up to that genre-defining release, consists of half a dozen tracks of exceedingly slow and oppressive-feeling doom metal. The tracks range in length from six to ten minutes, but the all-enveloping, smothering nature of the music makes them seem longer (in a good way). The sound is seriously downtuned, with slow, deep, drum beats, as if some unnamed titan's heart can be heard beating in the bowels of the earth. The vocals are barely distinguishable as such, sounding like the grating of a huge block of stone as it seals the entrance to a subterranean tomb, blocking out all light with it's bulk. The keyboards and guitar are more subdued than is usual but I don't feel that this album is particularly melancholy or depressing, but it projects more of an ancient martial atmosphere that may feasibly have accomanied the passing of a company of war elephants as they leave on a march to conquest.

There are quite a number of similarities between this and the aforementioned Thergothon's Stream From the Heavens and both albums can justifiably be held up as the standard against which all other funeral doom releases are judged, epitomising all that this style of extreme doom is about. They both are able to project epicness and true heft with, what is essentially, a stripped-down style of metal.

As an interesting aside, the band released an EP, Ethere, around the same time that has alternate versions of a couple of the tracks from Lead and Aether, The March and the Stream and Aether which seem starker and less oppressive than their album counterparts. Both versions are great in different ways and make the EP a very worthy companion piece to the full-length.

On the absolute doom metal scale, if at one end are positioned the darkest, heaviest bands such as Burning Witch or Winter, then at the opposite end of the scale are Trees of Eternity. This is light and airy doom metal with ethereal female vocals. To me this type of doom is aimed more at younger fans for whom melancholia is an aesthetic choice rather than the cynical morbidity of (probably older) fans for whom doom is more an actual part of who they are. I am aware that there is an additional aura of genuine tragedy surrounding the album with the passing of Aleah Starbridge before it's release. However, judging it solely on the musical content, I consider this as akin to the Twilight movies of doom metal, so, no, I'm not really a fan.