Friday, 18 December 2015

Garden of Worm – Idle Stones (2015) / 85%

Edgar Allan Poe Dameron - Doom-Wing prog leader
Perhaps that these stones are idle but this Finnish trio is far from being static. Half a decade since their debut self titled album, we're offered this new sacrifice to the gods of doom and compared to their previous full length, this is much rooted in progressive rock and quite a bit softer.

The four songs and forty something minutes record is divided in two parts : the first being two introspective long tracks and the second being two shorter yet atmospheric numbers. It took me a while to fully appreciate the release as it's nowhere near as automatically rewarding as their debut but after four or five spins, I was slowly getting entranced into the dark yet comfortable world created by these guys. The guitars have this exploratory feel, it feels like some sort of psychedelic improvisations at times and it's quite soothing. This combined with the reflective clean vocals of guitarist Erno Taipale (also in the excellent psych band Seremonia), this creates an album that really distinguish itself from the traditionally traditional doom scene. It's sad and feels like a lonely night on a frozen lake and somewhat acts as a interpretation of Finnish woes about solitude.  Kudos to the use of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry for the last track as well, well done.

Emptiness was gathered
As a token, an epitaph
In the end it's all we have

Despite the seriousness of the themes, the riffs feel loose and almost gentle in college rock kind of way. They still unleash the hard goods like with the superb opener “Fleeting are the Days of Men” or the enormous bass lines of “Desertshore” but there's many moments where the three main ingredient of rock and metal do their own thing for an extended period of time like on the prog “Summer's Isle” and its glorious final instrumental section. If bands like Saint Vitus aren't weird enough and you dig the likes of Revelation or most of the Finnish scene, step into the garden of ghargh.


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