The Baguette Doom Series pt. I : Poitou-Charentes
From
Poitiers comes a very skilled band and the first I picked to be
featured on this extensive series of reviews about French doom metal.
Released in 2008, TBDLB's first album is quite enjoyable and deserves
more recognition amongst the doom world. The band is currently
working on a new album and it's long overdue, we'll see what they'll
do with only one guitarist since one left the band last year.
Their
sound is crushing, the duel guitars approach is heavy and it's fuzzy
as fuck but it's never crossing into sludge or stoner territories.
The songs are rather long and has an interesting spooky atmosphere.
Despite the name of the band which is probably the result of an
evening with too much wine and cheese for the bellies of these French
doomsters. There's a good mix of mid paced riffing and slower
tendencies that can be pretty harsh for traditional doom like on the
epic “The Dead Can't Lose Again” and its distorted finale. Their
doom sound is pretty unique and has hints of Saint Vitus, Reverend
Bizarre or the heaviest non groovy moments of Cathedral. The seven
minutes instrumental track “Evil Echoes” showcases the band's
musicality extremely well. It builds a crescendo with the help of
heavy yet simple riffs and balanced it with clean atmospheric guitars
that doesn't quite work that much compared to their hard hitting slow
approach. The piano interlude “Temple of Blind” truly works on
the other hand.
Benjamin
Reverseau's vocals are probably the highlight of the band for me.
He's superb in my opinion. Torturous and operatic, his voice has a
lot of beard into it and he's almost a Celtic sorcerer evoking
Toutatis and his grand designs. He truly shines on the ten minutes
track “Slowstone Banner”. He reminds me of the weirdness of
Dorrian, the jolly operatic tendencies of Messiah and the overall
tongue in cheek despair of Albert Witchfinder. The dude even has a
song dedicated to him on Children of Doom's full length (to be
reviewed)!
Not
quite unique, the band is still pretty interesting and worthy of your
ears, their musicianship is very decent, the vocal lines are always
awesome albeit not present enough in some songs. Nonetheless, there's
nothing utterly wrong about “Blood for the Bloodking”
Slow,
mournful doom with a sense of musicality and interesting riffs is
always interesting to hear and this band achieves this on their debut
full length. A worthy album of an underrated scene, check them out
and drink from their bottle.
No comments:
Post a Comment