Review: Witch Mountain - Cauldron of the Wild: Born of the cauldron, the wild will rise - 96%

This is, my friends, the greatest doom album of the year, Cauldron of the Wild, the sophomore release from this band from Oregon with the vocalist Uta Plotkin is almost perfect. Their first release on the Canadian label Profound Lore follows the excellent South of Salem and this album is a total continuation of their sentimental blend of doom metal. I wanted to review this musical piece since I got it, the day it was released if I remember correctly, but I decided to wait and found the appropriate words and I'm glad I did.

I know that I'm a sucker for doom metal with female vocals but Plotkin is truly, truly unique. She has amazing pipes and she's a real powerhouse. Perhaps, the most talented singer in metal right now. Seeing her live back in june was a real bliss, sadly the crowd was sparse, Montréal is not really a good place for doom, especially on mondays...Surprising how an amazing voice like hers came from a calm and sweet short woman, haha ! Her place is at the mic and nowhere else, she's a mesmerising frontwoman with natural charisma. Usually, she's going all blues berserk mode with high falsettos and slow romantic groovy drinking hymn vocals. But, sometimes, there's these strange harsh vocals, it's definitely good, albeit unorthodox and surprising for this genre. Plotkin wrote all the lyrics and they are fucking great. Sometimes about personal confessions, sometimes it's strange dark stories. For example, the first track "The Ballad of Lanky Rae" is about a strong tall woman who's the daughter of a demon, for example. It's quite fun and I really like the lyricism of her words, it's definitely a part of the complete experience of Witch Mountain. Each song has a different touch and reading them was interesting (I added the lyrics to the MA page and it was a joy to do so, can't say the same about many artists). Her poetry can be amazing, sometimes simple but at the same time full of imagery, I like these lines from "Veil of the Forgotten":

«We will win with patience cold in the stone. Gold Jade and blood amethys and bone.»
«No teeth sink deeper than teeth of time so we just watch it fester.»

She has a real talent for lyrics and she transmits her passion with ease and class on stage. She reminds me of Janis Joplin, she has the same vibrant passion and that's evident, but enough of miss Plotkin! 

During the 45 minutes duration of Cauldron of the Wild, we experience many different emotions. It can be fast paced doom such as  "Beekeeper" and very slow like the last and strong song "Never Know", which is a real romantic bluesy ballad. The guitarist Rob Wrong, the main songwriter of the band really shines throughout the record. His style is mixing the classic Iommi riffs, always the basis of traditionnal and stoner doom with a huge emphasis on bluesy Hendrix-like licks. There's even some Chandler influenced fuzzy riffs and leads. Fortunately for the doom purists, the doom influences are the classic ones, this album is safe from the modern influences of post metal and sludge, even if there's weird moments like these aforementionned harsh vocals, these are minimal. If this album had been released during the heydays of Sleep, it would had been a classic today, the songwriting is solid and just like the wailing and powerful vocals. The riffs are slow, undeniably heavy and borderling on the stoner metal style. There's no restraints in the leads, they're totally vibrant and reminds me of some sort of psychedelic jam sessions where everyone is stoned on acid. Nathan Carson's drumming is top notch, it's classic doom drumming, slow and without frills and defaults. The bass playing of Neal Munson could be higher in the mix, but the emphasis is clearly on the guitar and the vocals and that's fine in my book, but some cooler bass lines would had been nice. Still, the songwriting and musicianship is simply top notch, without limits and never overplayed or technical, it's truly music for your emotions and your spirit, it feeds you romanticism, dark stories and americana. 

The song lengths are perfect, 6 songs, nothing too long, the two last tracks "Aurelia» and "Never Know" are the longest at around 10 minutes each, when the album stops, the music continues in your mind, proof of its worth. Like the album art indicates, the cauldron is warm, full of familiar magic potion, attracting everything in its area with its seductive wildness. This is the sort of music that needs to be played very loud with lots of booze. It's shack music, remove your boots full of fresh earth, fill your cup with that potion and put on wool socks, it feels right, everything will be alright.

Review: Black Chalice - Submission : The deluge full of dementia and black shadows.

This is a very good demo from a one man project from Portland, Maine and it works as a counterpart to Auspicium, the atmospheric black metal project of this dude named Patrick A. Hasson. I never heard this other band so I can't hardly make any comparaisons, but Submission has this raw production and this lugubre feeling, somewhat coming from these black metal roots. The themes and lyrics are quite personal and deals with depression issues, it's profound and quite good.

This demo tape released on Contaminated Tones, a new underground label from New Jersey led by my friend Jon is very well done. The songwriting is solid and very captivating. We have 4 songs for 32 minutes of music and there's no time wasted, maybe the 4 minutes introduction called « Deluge » wasn't so needed but it's nothing to complain about, it gives us some time to dive into the harsh and uncompromising world that's waiting for us throughout the next 3 songs. There's nothing unnatural here, all is very vivid and atmospheric. It sounds like a restless grey ocean tormenting a sad old man on his little ship of dark dreams. Silly comparaisons aside, Black Chalice is very dark and captivating, the songs are slow and are long dirges. It's mainly atmospheric death/doom but there's some funeral doom and lo-fi traditionnal doom influences as well. The last title track is totally monumental and my favorite on the demo, it starts with a calm intro with soothing vocals softly murmured in the background and the guitar is quite clean, almost like a lullaby. A cool bass solo is separating the soft intro and leads to a heavier part, this part is as melodic as early Anathema. The musicianship is simple and does the job very well, the riffs are not really complimented by the minimal production though, they deserve a tightier production though. The harsh vocals are cavernous and slow and adequate to the music, they're in the background, like a howling deluge of thoughts and it feels right

With a better production and with a bit more colours, Black Chalice could really become a great beast. Hasson is a talented musician and he has a very bright vision of doom, it's lo-fi, simple but very dark and rewarding. Check that out.

Review: High Priest of Saturn - Norwegian fuzziness is quite good! 83%

Behold these new doomsters directly from Trondheim, the home of the black/doom acts Furze and Faustcoven, but contrary to these bands, HPoS plays a sort of doom metal influenced mostly by Om and Electric Wizard and they do it quite well. This demo has 2 songs for 20 minutes of music and it's a very good first release by this promising young band led by Merethe, she's singing and she plays the guitar and the organ. She's really the driving force of this band, her charisma and talent might be something to experience live. Too bad I live on the other side of the Atlantic.


The first song "The Protean Towers" opens the demo and remains interesting during its 10 minutes. Like his title, the song has many different influences, ranging from psychedelic stoner rock with a huge spacey sound and an hotbox atmosphere to fuzzy doom metal with nice leads. The vocals of Merethe are very cool, atmospheric and soothing and without a lot of reverb like in many stoner bands. Indeed, they're not quite buried under the instruments. It reminds me of Cisneros's vocals but sexier! I must say that, while the band doesn't innovate much on any grounds, these vocals are pretty good, Even if you usually dislike female voices, it wouldn't be a dealbreaker because it's really part of their specific atmosphere and it really fits the songwriting, handled by Merethe.

Don't be fooled, HPoS is hardly a copycat band, they use the organ a lot and it gives them a very vintage sound nourished by Orange amps and of course, bell bottom trousers. The proeminent keys really gives us the reason the band is called High Priest of Saturn. Like fellow Scandinavians Saturnalia Temple, the band is not afraid to put a lot of work on their spacey and lush wall of sound and in the end, it's a charming success. There's a real will to embrace the 70s sound in their playing, it's not particularly heavy and it's not creating a huge wall of noisy indistinguishable riffs. Yes, it's fuzzy but it's more on the soft side, restrained and subtle. The guitar playing of Merethe and Andreas (also handling the drums) is slow and the leads are quite nice, full of psychedelia, the solo in the first song is fucking cool. The bass is loud and busy but it's also letting the organ do its own thing in the background. Listen to the short bass solo midway through "Crawling King Snake", it's damn tasty, same with the lovely amount of organs, Ray Manzarek would be proud! Concerning the drums, like the overall sound of this release, they remain slow but interesting and there's cool fills throughout the songs, the playing is ritualistic, heavy and full of cymbals.

Not a fan of Om's recent direction change? High Priest of Saturn will surely interest you. Add interesting guitar leads and mesmerising soft female vocals to Om's blend of slow ambient doom and you're in business. This was a good discovery and these guys have a lot of potential, along with the Norwegian doom scene (Summit and Resonant especially, but let's not forget Devil as well). I think that Lamented Souls' legacy finally paid off as we can clearly see a new wave of Norwegian doom to compete with the Swedish retro acts !

Listen to the album here: http://highpriestofsaturn.bandcamp.com/

Review: Nomad Son - The Eternal Return: Malta's doom is nigh! - 85%

Another older review, this time from Nomad Son, great mediterranean doom, here's the review.

This is the second album of Nomad Son and just like their first one, it's high quality doom. Malta isn't a place where you expect metal to be created, hey, they just legalized divorce there, it's a pretty religious country. But Nomad Son is a band who's integrating christianity into their lyrical themes. They do it without the over top cheesiness which exist in bands like Place of Skulls (a quality band, but their Jesus-in-your-face lyrics don't do much for me). So, Nomad Son is evolving in the small doom scene of Malta alongisde the better known band, Forsaken. Both are sharing Jowita Kaminska as the album art artist, Her style is apt to the spiritual and serious music of these guys. They also share the same bassist, so look no further for a comparative band, but there's some differences between the two bands from this small European island.

What we have here is a mix between traditionnal doom and a more vintage sound. I think the proeminent use of the keyboard is quite original and invigorating. We have some keys leads here and there, like on the second song, "Sigma Draconis" or in "Comatose Souls". It's often used as a second lead guitar, something like bands like Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple were doing. It's also used as a stand alone instrument, the intro of the album's epic "Winds of Golgotha" is a proof of that. It's done quite well, not too fancy and not only there to create a ''background'' to the guitars. The keyboardist and the guitarist are also brothers, so maybe the chemistry between the two instruments is coming from this. Nomad Son is a really talented band, their riffs are solid and the other musicians are also top notch. The solos are always cool and not forced on the listener. It's a band who's searching the right atmospheres without doing compensations on its solid and direct songwriting. The songs are lenghty but they're not suffering from unnecessary and boring parts, something doom bands tend to include.

Something which took me several listenings to get used to are the vocals. But when I get used to them, I really loved them. They are somewhat unusual for traditionnal doom, but Nomad Son isn't usual for this style either. They're quite raspy and high, imagine an higher Dio mixed with some of the rawer side of NWOBHM (Venom or Atomkraft), also some of the lower parts of King Diamond's vocals. Anyway, the vocals of Jordan Cutajar aren't as polarising as the ones of Lee Dorrian, he's a good singer with lots of pipes. Like the other musicians, he's both able to transmit atmospheres and more agressive vocals lines. The title track can be a good judge for the dual ability of the singer. The song starts slowly by some awesome melodic vocals to go forward to his more rawer vocals. I think the better comparaison I can give is Terry Jones (Pagan Altar) but less nasal. Both of these singers are in very original bands who aren't thrown in the bunch of other similar traditionnal doom bands.

If you're looking for some original doom which is both influenced by the American and the European scenes, look no further. Here's a good mix of epic, traditionnal doom and a touch of atmospheric keyboards here and there. Enjoy the ride to Malta's doom.

Review: Evangelist - In Partibus Infidelium : Polish epic doom gem! 88%

One of my older reviews posted on Metal Archives, a great take on epic doom by Evangelist, written in august 2011. I improved the grammar a bit. Enjoy

This album is the first contribution from Poland to the new growing scene of Epic doom that I've discovered. And, I must say, this is an awesome contribution. In Partibus Infidelium is Evangelist's first album, but it doesn't lack in maturity, in fact I think everything that makes epic doom one of my favorite metal genre is present. Poland isn't really a country known for its doom scene, it's more praised for its death metal one with Vader and Behemoth. But, Evangelist is influenced by Euro doom but it's not a copycat band.

First of all, the vocals are great, the singer (all the names of the members are unknown, so I'll mention them by their position, obviously) reminds me of Albert Witchfinder of the famous Reverend Bizarre, mixed with a more traditional heavy metal feel à la Bruce Dickinson. Some Messiah influences thown in the mix too. This kind of high emotional, almost operatic vocals lines fits the music perfectly. Simply listen to the awesome chorus in ''Funeral Mounds'' to get some shivers. The ghost of the classic Candlemass era lives perfectly in their sound. They are a follower of the fantasy lyrical approach,  it's not cheesy though and much more subtle way than flower metal. ''Cthulhu Rising'' would be a great hint from where they took their inspiration. Some Howard references are present too, Conan is a popular subject and the many heavy metal interpretations are always welcome. The unknown singer is the main thing that makes this album an hidden gem for me, the vocals are amazing.

Apart from the vocals, we have a really nice wall of riffs. They are simple (it's still doom we're talking about, they're not played in a more traditional epic metal way like Solstice or Isen Torr). We also have nice clean and emotional solos to encounter, which are always cool to hear in doom. Riff wise, we could make a parallel to the Chilean doomsters Procession or to a lesser extent to the aforementionned Atlantean Kodex, but less epic. The instrumentation is quite typical from the epic doom scene, not very innovative, but it's done well and with passion. The riffs are heavy as hell, just like The Gates of Slumber. It is dark, serious and at only six songs and a little more than forty minutes, the album isn't repetitive. The feel is somewhat mid paced and when the last song ''Confiteor'' ends suddenly, you're up wanting more. 

So, if you like the current traditional doom scene, you'll dig Evangelist for sure. They're maybe a safe band for their genre. But they're doing everything correctly and for a first record, they deserve all the credit I can give them. Doom album of 2011 for me, but I'm still waiting for the new The Wounded Kings, so we'll see.

Review: Arkhamin Kirjasto : Torches Ablaze - NWOFHM # 3 : Show me the way to R'lyeh ! 90%

"Venom on acid, bad trippin' in space and killing witches." - This would be the poster if this album was a B- movie.

This is the third part of my New Wave of Finnish Heavy Metal special, in reality a genre led by Jussi Lehtisalo, a very charismatic musician usually wearing spandex and spikes on stage and it's damn impressing. Torches Ablaze is the latest album of his prolific label, Ektro Records and shows no  musical compromises. For this project,  Jussi is teaming up with Samae Koskinen, a live member of Xysma and a well known musician of the scene. Compared to Krypt Axeripper or any of the numerous and all excellent projects of Lehtisalo, Arkhamin Kirjasto is really winning the crown if we're searching for his weirdest stuff. It's basically a mix of harsh vocals reminding me of the Old School death metal scene like Autopsy or even some Asphyx mixed with a traditonal metal approach à la Judas Priest. All this without forgetting the huge dose of experimental influences.

Koskinen's voice is really cool and the sound of it mixed with the very diverse music is very unorthodox. It's almost surreal and out of this world. He's also playing the drums and he's sharing the bass and guitar duties with Lehtisalo. Will I can appreciate their sound, his vocals aren't especially great, they're quite on the lower register of harsh vocals and wouldn't really compete with someone like van Drunen. But for what they are and for the music, they fit very fucking well. We also have some spacey vocals like in "Sea of Madness", there's even some Manilla Road similarities, from their more psychedelic stuff obviously. There's not a lot of variation or very particularly memorable vocal lines on Torches Ablaze, I like the catchy chorus of Bitch from Hell though, a cool brainless and fun song, but the force of Arkhamin Kirjasto is their absolutely stellar songwriting, like all of Lehtisalo's projects apparently. Hey, I'm a fanboy and I'm proud of it! It really sounds like Venom and Priest reading Lovecraft and smoking opium and that's very fucking cool.

You can feel the mix of influences in their music and even though I was expecting something like this based on their first self titled release, I wasn't disappointed. It's very organic and despite the rather strange mix of genres, everything has a clear direction and it's coherent. As an introduction to the album we have "The Cult of No Return', there's some kind of keys or organs in the beginning, you're perhaps awaiting some kind of post metal à la Isis but instead there's a riff stolen from Downing and Tipton's secret vault of awesome riffs mixed with a Reifert influenced vocal approach. It's cavernous and mysterious, you can clearly see the shades of Cthulhu dancing on the walls, awaiting the opportunity to devour your soul. It's weirder than Atheist without even trying to be. It feels a natural blend of genres, not a forced one, it's not "hey let's put some jazz interludes just because we can" metal, it's all in the feelings, all in the emotions and at the end, it's truly rewarding. The production compared to their self titled release (completely in Finnish compared to this English release) is really good, it's not perfectly clean but less raw than their previous EP. The guitars are quite fuzzy, they have a lot of reverb and this very cool old school feel.  There's some cool leads reminding me of Krypt Axeripper (my first review of this NWOFHM special). The basslines are tasty and it's present enough to make us forget that it's a duo, they remind me of the more punkish side of metal, even hardcore at times. check out the song Speed, Yog Sogoth, heavy bassline right there! Sometimes the traditional metal influence is clearer, sometimes it sounds more like Autopsy trying its hand at glam metal. Anyway, we have a good variety of tempos and atmospheres, but it remains quite fast paced and it's very groovy. From Angel Witch to Venom, the influence of NWOBHM is unambiguous and much appreciated.

If you're a fan of traditional heavy metal but you feel a bit bored by the lack of experimentation of this realm, check out Arkhamin Kirjasto's new album, it's great stuff. Mindblowing and strange riffs mixed with sepulchral vocals creating a weird lovecraftian mass, but you absolutely want to be there. (by the way, yes, there's booze)

Buy: http://ektrorecords.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=2799
Listen to the whole album: http://soundcloud.com/ektrorecords/sets/arkhamin-kirjasto-torches/s-rgJ8r

Review: After Illusion - s/t demo : Nosferatu is in dire need of blood... - 58%

I wrote this review because the band asked me to in the Request a Review thread of the Metal Archives, it was written back in july. 


After Illusion is a young doom metal band and this self titled demo is their second one after one released in 2007. It was a musical piece the band didn't like and they threw it in the garbage can, was this one also worthy of being thrashed? You will see. What we have here is 3 original songs, a short classical intro and a cover of Saint Vitus. The album art is cool, it's a picture of Bega Lugosi as Dracula, it's scary and totally metal. I was expecting some kind of occult doom metal, maybe similar to American peers Hour of 13, but what we have here is some kind of epic doom with some influences from power metal, but at the same time, it's trying to be traditional doom. After Illusion is classified as a power/thrash band in its earlier years on the Archives, the epic vocals and the atmospheric guitars are possibly a remnant of this power metal phase. Anyway, it feels like a doomier version of epic heavy metal at times, it could be linked to bands like Doomsword, albeit not as epic and it's not based on fantasy and history. The themes of the lyrics are about horror and the occult, but I hardly find this in their music, it doesn't invoke that kind of atmosphere within me as a band like The Wounded Kings would. It's not spooky, it's boring.

I like some of the riffs, but the production on them is quite soft, the drums and bass are also quite ordinary, not much to say about them, they're in the back doing their thing, without any form of artifices. The demo obviously lacks adequate production, and the songwriting is also uninteresting. The first song, Life and Death is quite influenced by Pagan Altar, one of the biggest influences on the band. We have an enjoyable clean lead riff at the beginning and some laid back epic styled vocals, not nasally like Terry Jones though. I'm not crazy about these vocals, they're decent, but not as good as the riffs which are themselves only semi decent. The production on the vocals is not the best, it's not complimenting the music enough, they're not bad, really, but both the execution and the production could definitely be improved. The band leader Adam Thomas is a talented fellow though, he's playing the guitar, singing and also playing the keyboards, although these aren't much present. We can feel their lush presence in Life and Death, but not so much elsewhere. The song Black Ritual has a well written solo, but again the production is soft and tired. Also, the riffs progression is not worthy of a first class doom band. For example, Nosferatu included a soft break in the middle of the song and it feels totally out of place and the transition is not well done. The songwriting has potential though, but the songs we have here are pretty boring, not mediocre, but it's lacking the sheer mighty force that I enjoy in doom metal and the production isn't to blame here. The songs are not very long for the genre, 4 to 6 minutes, but they feel like an eternity. The band is kind of in between genres, they're not sure if they're playing a more epic and atmospheric style of doom or a more traditionnal one. Something that better known recent doom bands can be accused of as well, but these (Pallbearer, Pilgrim and co.) are able of creating a good balance between the solid and fuzzy riffs and the atmospheric ones and also, they're writing with their balls and it's heavy as fuck, not something that I can say about this demo. Even the Vitus cover (Zombie Hunger) is boring, it's lacking the blurry, occult presence of this great track from Vitus' first album. 

The band doesn't fail though, they're still young and I liked the first song, but sadly, the best songwriting on this demo is the intro track, Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky... I won't throw the files in my virtual garbage can, because I recognize the potential and the effort and it's not badly written, but it's not very inspired either. Doom is not the most complex genre, but it needs passion, After Illusion is nothing new and it's tiresome