Labels: Broken Limbs
Review by: Gareth L
I’m a fairly late arrival to the doom metal genre. For a good portion of my music listening life my enjoyment of ‘doom’ has been confined to the metal faced villain and the Job for a Cowboy EP. However in the last little while something about the agonised vocals, downtuned megaslow riffs and pessimistic outlook has really been hitting the spot. Although I appreciate the Black Sabbath influence on a lot of these bands, I really don’t want them to sound like Black Sabbath, especially not vocally (like Pallbearer, Warning, or other bands with ‘clean’ Ozzy vocals). What seems to work for me is the low guttural vocals that seem to go perfectly with the guitar sound. Anyway, enough about me, it’s about the beats. Oops, that’s the other doom again.
The first of three songs, ‘Legacy’, is therefore pretty much exactly what I want from a band like this. It is actually one of my favourite examples of the whole genre, and has a riff after about 6 and a half minutes that literally made me wince with its total heaviosity the first time I heard it. Ridiculous track. Likewise the closer ‘Cascading Shard’ ticks all the boxes, heavier than something very heavy indeed. The one slight disappointment here is the middle track which is more experimental, droney and seems comparatively directionless. However, sandwiched in between the might of the other two monsters, most things would pale in comparison. Absolutely worth a listen if your neck muscles and sense of well-being can take it.