Baguette Doom Series Part VI : “The Holy Father!!!”
Doom
scenes are all pretty small throughout the world and while France has
a better scene than Québec, it's still composed of a passionated
minority of obscure bands. Weird Light is definitely one of the best
kept secret of the underground. Their only released demo, a release
of 2 songs for 23 minutes of music is a doom jewel and it's almost a
tragedy that the band split up one year after it.
It's
pure traditional doom classicism and that's perfectly fine for me.
The duo found their niche rapidly and you can hear that their sound
was already mature. I already mentioned the influence of Reverend
Bizarre on the French doom scene but it's much more obvious on this
demo. The music is slow, simple and driven by the single guitar
delivering heavy riffs. It's fairly lo-fi as well. The musicianship
is not astonishing but it hardly matters with the style they play.
The production is pretty decent for a demo release. It's airy and
atmospheric like on the ending of “Obsidian Temple” with its
clean passage. The tone is pretty depressing, somewhat akin to
Warning's “Watching from a Distance” but not as whiny and
personal. It's mesmerizing stuff, it succeeds at creating a special
aura with elementary tools and that's a real proof of their
songwriting skills. It's dark but enchanting and never really
tongue-in-cheek or too serious for its own sake.
The
vocals, like some of the other French doom I reviewed, are the
strength of Weird Light. High, operatic clean vocals are always
something truly awesome in traditional doom and it's also the case
here. While not thoroughly powerful, they are pretty damn good and
they sound great for such a release. The vocals are slow and catchy especially on “Gogmagog
(Under the Trumpets of Doom”). They have these weird, romantic vocal
lines that I kept singing to myself. The ability to write memorable
vocals is not given to everyone but I think they had it. The music
itself is traditional doom but the vocals are adding this fabulous
epic doom edge à la Candlemass.
A damn
shame the duo were fairly inactive, their songwriting truly worked,
the production is optimal for a demo. Their image, the artwork,
everything is excellent. I'll go praise Satan and ask for their
return. It's an essential demo for the doom fans, it's true and
honest and one of the best offering the underground French doom scene
has to offer.
The band is dead and their stuff is probably not findable so I don't think anyone would object that I share the demo, DOWNLOAD IT
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