Climb Into Ourselves Again – Mike Scheidt of YOB Talks Doom

Posted on March 19, 2015 by News Team

In Part II of our interview with Mike Scheidt of YOB, we talked about the popularity of the band and the wider acceptance of Doom Metal as whole the last few years. Although he refused to take credit for it, YOB’s killer albums have certainly been part of the equation. At the same time Mike remains grounded and remembers where he came from when the band played to empty clubs and heard crickets. Check out the piece below and make sure to catch the band on tour with Enslaved this spring.

“We are equal parts stoked, perplexed and surprised, so that is good. Part of it for us is longevity. We’ve been around and been around long enough to have seen it go from 50 people at a show to 500. The climate has changed and we have played big shows and things we certainly never set out to do. It has grown as we have grown. And we have also tried to focus and keep our heads down too, and focus on the music and why it is we love music, and love to play the music we love. I think metal in general has come more on the worldwide radar as art, as opposed to just deviant, meat-headed music as it did 20 years ago. Now it is being taken seriously much more so than before. We’ve worked hard to become a better, stronger band. I also think some of it has nothing to do with us. We’ve never tried to be an ambitions band, trying to get out there. We play Doom Metal. For a large part of our history, nobody really cared. Now that people do, we can’t really take credit for that. There are so many bands putting records out there.”

“When a bunch of critics and writers agree that they like our record, it’s totally an honor and humbling. It’s an interesting change. It’s taken a little running and getting used to. Those things come and go too. We acknowledge it. We are grateful for it. We keep working on, work on the music, the live performance. We just keep on keeping on.”

“We had no expectations to begin with. We are honored to share the stage with some of our heroes. The thing about a Doom metal show in the year 2000 was nobody was there by accident. Everybody knew what they were getting into. Those 50 people that we were there knew what they were getting into. Whether it’s a trend or not, time will tell how that will unfold. We’ve been doing it for so long now. I don’t see us deviating from that anytime soon.”

As a closing point, Mike made a profound comparison to the biggest bands of yesterday, and the line between critical praise and the commercialism of the mainstream today:

“Even 25 years ago, the metal bands that were big were fantastic. Really big. Iron Maiden. Judas Priest. Slayer. Motorhead. These bands are incredibly wealthy and they are all still good. And the fans haven’t abandoned them. Getting mainstream success today doesn’t mean the same thing today as it did for those bands. It’s a completely different world and completely different musical climate.”

WORDS BY KEITH CHACHKES

Krakow – amaran

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Steve Tovey

When you’re handed an album for a Norwegian Metal band, it’s pretty safe for you to assume that you’ve been given a Death or Black Metal record with the fact that a new one pops up almost on a weekly basis. With Krakow’s amaran (Dark Essence) though (yeah they’re not from Poland…) what you’ve actually got is a dark and twisted Stoner/Metal album which revels in bleak down tuned slow riffs and heaviness. When some of the harsher vocals kick in you’ll quickly draw comparisons to their native Kvelertak, but Krakow are a different beast, mashing together several influences like Kvelertak do, but with less focus on the punkier aspects and more drive towards the Doomier side.

The album opens with ‘Luminauts’ which immediately sets the tone for what’s going on here. The mysterious and atmospheric opening to the track is an idea which they run with throughout the record. Each track builds and builds until it reaches a cacophony of sound at the end – and for the most part it works very well. The track ‘Pendulum’ becomes a perfect example of this. It actually sounds like the band were sitting there experimenting with different sounds before someone picked up a guitar and threw down into an awesome bouncy riff. They’ve made it sound effortless to produce, when in reality you know that it would have taken a lot of work.

Perhaps the only drawback here is the fact that you kind of know what you’re getting with each track. They’ve focussed on making each one such an epic it might not be the most accessible to casually pick up– old hardened Doom heads will absolutely love it though. There are some tracks on here as well, like ‘Ten Silent Circles’, where the band has actually looked to expand into quite a proggy sound. By this point you should be able to grasp that Krakow do not pull any punches when it comes to trying to deliver a truly varied soundscape – they’re clearly a talented bunch, with each track sounding very tight and well produced but this deviation isn’t one of the stronger points on the record.

Overall then, with amaran, Krakow have produced a solid Stoner/Doom Metal album which brings together a deluge of different influences whilst also stamping their own authority and sound on proceedings. It isn’t the kind of album you’ll casually pick up and be instantly hooked, but with patience and a good few repeat listens you’ll begin to appreciate the musicianship of the group and all of the little intricacies each track houses.

7.0/10

Krakow on Facebook

TOM DONNO

Ghost Cult Magazine Album Of The Year 2014 Countdown! #15 to #11

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Steve Tovey

…And so we continue with our countdown of the Official Ghost Cult Top 50 Metal releases of 2014 by bringing you Albums 15 to 11. As we get closer the top, the sheer unadulterated quality of the albums covered is astounding, and every one of our Top 20 should proudly sit in your collection already. And if it doesn’t, you should get investigating immediately…

15. GODFLESH – A World Lit Only By Fire (Avalanche)

Joining the growing list of bands who have returned from a leave of recording absence in style, Justin Broadrick resumes where he left off thirteen years ago, delivering dissonant, nihilistic, industrial cold post-metal. Innovators and leaders to a previous generation of bands, Godflesh returns with metallic precision and destructive poundings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PqXB-u4j04

“The crushing landscapes of Streetcleaner (Earache) are recalled in the merciless dehumanised beats yet the harshness of the eight string guitar has taken this unforgiving creation an even blacker more disturbing feel. The momentum never lags throughout this fearsome monolith feeling urgent and vital throughout. It may be their first full length in thirteen years but every fibre of the bands DNA has mutated into an even more virulent strain of post-Sabbath paranoia whose icy claws cannot be escaped.”

Read ROSS BAKER’s 8/10 review here

14. INDIAN – From All Purity (Relapse)

Extreme doom has never been in a healthier or more prolific state, and is a scene with a surfeit of reeking repugnancy spread over a growing horde of performers. Oozing themselves to the very peak of the sludge mountain is Chicago’s Indian, with a release that tests the very limits of just how hideous a piece of music can be and still be appreciated. Essential art, manifested as abhorrent compositions.

“Over the course of 39 harrowing minutes, Indian attempt to batter the listener into submission with a ceaseless barrage of spiky sludge riffs that aren’t afraid to repeat themselves to make their point well and truly felt, percussion that hits as hard as a drunken preacher taking his belt to a cowering sinner, horrible harsh droning noises that sound like a possessed radio broadcasting live from Chernobyl, and all topped off with Will Lindsay’s throat-shredding howls and screeches.”

Read JAMES CONWAY’s 8/10 review here

13. OPETH – Pale Communion (Roadrunner)

On Heritage, Mikael Åkerfeldt led his Swedes away from a technical Death Metal past towards the Prog Rock light. With Pale Communion, transition completed, he perfects the marriage of Opeth and their new slant, constructing a beautiful, reflective, warm and overwhelmingly natural album that speaks in an altered, more progressively refined tongue to the previous voices of Opeth.

“Fast forward three years and Pale Communion is, in many ways a continuation of such a direction, but one that see’s Mikael’s uncompromising view drawing more clearly into focus. Harking back again to the late 60s and early 70s this eleventh studio opus features fluid dexterous drum patterns, moody distorted organ work and another all clean and highly proficient performance in the vocal department. Where Heritage felt somewhat disjointed on occasion Pale Communion is richly woven into a tapestry of ornate and complex elements rather than flitting from one genre to the next.”

Read ROSS BAKER’s 7/10 review here

12. YOB – Clearing The Path To Ascend (Neurot)

Like one of their own dark, weighty epics, Yob’s career is slowly unfurling, opening out as expansive riffs draw out of the dark, and slab-heavy tones meld Post and Doom Metal. Yob’s previous two albums, in particular, have been preparation for this career defining opus, where the permutations of delicate beauty and unsubtle heavyweight guitars are woven skilfully.

“Clearing the Path to Ascend begins by showing a return to the inventive aspects of …Cessation with a gently repetitive chords, and mellifluous tones riding a colossal riffs that move with the speed of a tortoise. All four tracks far exceed the ten-minute mark yet none here exceed their welcome. Combining the best aspects of the band’s aforementioned last albums this is a perfect blend of weight, hostility, melody and ecstasy, and will need many plays to yield its full array of splendour.”

Read PAUL QUINN’s 9/10 review here

11. TOMBS – Savage Gold (Relapse)

While predecessor Path of Totality (fortunately not a dub-step album, like Korn’s of the same name)) was a great album in its own right, it is in 2014 that songwriter Mike Hill, backed by a crystalline production by Erik Rutan, has finalised the blueprint of how to merge granite flecked post-Metal with rusted Black Metal, bathing us all in cold, exacting, current, intelligent and hostile extreme music, where the caustic overwhelms.

“Savage Gold, the third album from Brooklyn quartet Tombs, is certainly no easy listen. Since their debut release Winter Hours in 2009, the band have attempted to show just how black and post-metal should go together and once again stand head and shoulders above the competition, for Savage Gold is a triumph in visceral aggression and brooding atmospherics.”

Read JAMES CONWAY’s 9/10 review here

Compiled and additional words by Steve Tovey

The Official Ghost Cult Writers Albums of the Year Top 50: 30-21

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Steve Tovey

The countdown to the Official Ghost Cult Magazine Album of the Year for 2014 continues. Please consume and enjoy the results of our 2014 Writers’ Poll. We hope it will introduce you to some of the incredible works of art you may have missed that we have had the immense pleasure of listening to and writing about this year.

In our third installment we bring you albums 30 through to 21

30. CASUALTIES OF COOL – Casualties Of Cool (Pledge/HevyDevy)

“Casualties of Cool is an intriguing experiment from a man who excels in making left-field music. Go in expecting massive a prog-metal exercise will only lead to disappointment, but having an open mind will result in a rewarding experience” DAN SWINHOE 8/10 Full review here

29. ANATHEMA – Distant Satellites (KScope)

“One of our world’s most understated bands, despite the plaudits they get, Anathema have once again showcased their knack for penning both forward thinking and emotionally driven music which oozes real human character and sentimentality”. CHRIS TIPPELL 9/10 Full review here

28. DOWN – IV (Part II) (Down Records)

“When we look back on this part of their career, we will likely understand that these are less like regular EPs that other bands release, and much more like a mini-opus, in pieces. Down clearly realizes their collective vision, no matter who is in the lineup, every time”. KEITH ‘KEEFY’ CHACHKES 9.5/10 Full review here

27. VALLENFYRE – Splinters (Century Media)

“Sadistic and aggressive with endless moments of bleak reflection Splinters is a leviathan unleashed upon unsuspecting listeners and a release surely destined to grace many year end lists” ROSS BAKER 9/10 Full review here

26. AGALLOCH – “The Serpent and the Sphere” (Profound Lore)

Like a massive-antlered stag glimpsed amidst a wintry landscape, breathtaking, elusive and hard to pin down, The Serpent and the Sphere looks set to continue their elegant and ever-evolving legacy JAMES CONWAY 9/10 Full review here

25. THOU – Heathen (Gilead Media)

“A storm manifest as a piece of music, as devastating as it is awe-inspiring, Heathen is varied and compelling for the entire runtime”. TOM SAUNDERS 9/10 Full review here

24. septicflesh – Titan (Season of Mist)

“Sharp, buzzing riffs and symphonic keys, strength and brutality amongst moments of pomp and beauty, bloody entertaining and another show of form” PAUL QUINN 8.5/10 Full review here

23. PYRRHON – The Mother of Virtues (Relapse)

“The Mother Of Virtues doesn’t just challenge what is “extreme”, but calls into question whether some of what is produced is actually even music. Completely and utterly impenetrable, and exceptional with it”. STEVE TOVEY 9.5/10 Full review here

22. EYEHATEGOD – EyeHateGod (Housecore/Century Media)

“Eyehategod continue to age like a good whiskey, seeming to improve as time goes by, but by no means losing their sting”. CHRIS TIPPELL 9/10 Full review here

21. ALCEST – Shelter (Prophecy)

“Shedding the last vestiges of metal, let-alone any lingering black metal leanings, a captivating and stunning piece of music poured straight from the heart”. JAMES CONWAY 9/10 Full review here

Ghost Cult Magazine Albums of the Year: 50-41

Ghost Cult Magazine Albums of the Year: 40-31

Conan – 11 Paranoias: Camden Underworld, London, UK

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Steve Tovey

The underground music scene in the UK is now so diverse, so rich and so productive, that it is sometimes pretty hard to keep up with what’s going on half the time. It was therefore with a mixed sense of excited anticipation and a small amount of “I’m not all that familiar with their work” nervousness that your humble scribe arrived at the Camden Underworld, keen to see out the drab grey month of October with some ferocious band watching. However, thanks to a combination of bad food and bad planning on my part, I only arrived at the Camden Underworld at around 9pm but just in time to see 11 Paranoias hit the stage.

11 Paranoias have a brilliant collective intelligence and their approach to music making reflects this in spades. With interests that veer across supernaturally slow doom, stoner and psychedelia, 11 Paranoias treated a knowledgeable and discerning audience to an exercise in music-making that thrilled the head as much as the heart. What impressed about 11 Paranoias were three things: the crediting of their audience with intelligence, their air of mystery but, above all, the ability to shift gear and tenor at the drop of a – ahem – hi-hat. This was a set of rich, powerful tunes, held together by some exemplary playing and occasionally breathtakingly thrilling music. Rarely can the impending coming of Armageddon have sounded so ethereal or quite so odd.

Having not really known what to expect, aside from my Twitter feed telling me they’d been awesome at Roadburn Festival earlier this year, this was one of those gigs that could have gone either way. I should have had more faith; they were absolutely, unequivocally excellent and I’m a fool for having doubted them.

By the time Conan actually hit the stage at the absurdly late (says he showing his considerable age) time of 10.10pm you got the sense that this was going to be a show about validation. 2014 has been a good year for Conan and this show reinforced and reconfirmed exactly why. That brief moment in early March when every hipster in the land decided that this sludgy doom stuff was for them seems to have (thankfully) passed and this was an audience of the dedicated, the informed and the passionate. Pretty much every journalist will tell you how a band hit the ground running but, honestly, opening your set with a pounding and relentless Crown of Talons is just what the music doctor ordered. To follow it up with an equally brutal Total Conquest and Foehammer had everyone grinning from ear to ear whilst the band casually get down to the business of pounding you some more.

Particular mention should be given to new sticksman, Rich Lewis, who hits his drums as hard as anyone I’ve seen since that little old masked band from Iowa. It is an education and revelation to listen to him; he’s definitely added something to the band’s live power and the band’s cohesion is markedly improved.

As you might expect with latest album Blood Eagle (Napalm) still fresh in the mind, most of the set comes from those glorious grooves, but long-time fans will have welcomed the addition of an epic rendition of ‘Krull’ from Horseback Battle Hammer (Throne) and a seemingly neverending ‘Monnos’, which closed a set that was everything and more that you hoped it would be – irascible, irreverent, inimitable.

Great, in other words.

Conan Setlist

Crown of Talons

Total Conquest

Foehammer

Hawk As Weapon

Gravity Chasm

Horns For Teeth

Krull

Satsumo

Monnos

Words and Photos by MAT DAVIES

Weed Is Weed – Blunt Force Trauma

Posted on November 4, 2014 by Steve Tovey

When you ask some Stoner Rock and Metal bands about their scene, you’ll find a lot of them will not always directly address themselves as being particularly part of it. Ask Weed Is Weed that question? Well you can’t expect that kind of response. They’ve taken the idea of Stoner music and absolutely run with it, sounding like High On Fire on a jam session after smoking a couple. Leading the way are two big names from the Maryland scene in Dave Sherman and Gary Isom who between them have had a hand in the likes of Pentagram, Spirit Caravan and Earthride. So even just from that then, you know that this is going to be an album absolutely stacked with riffs, and that it is.

In fact it is the musicianship on the album which stops it being completely terrible. The band connect brilliantly, bringing a level of groove and heaviness up there with some of the very best bands in the scene at the moment. And it is in the music you should focus, because when we start paying too much attention to the lyrics it all starts falling apart. Obviously they’re not to be taken THAT seriously, but by the sixth track ‘Eat Pussy’ you are beyond the “what are they going on about?” phase. As you’d expect the majority of the album is about getting high, tracks ‘Weed Is Weed’, ‘Big Green Patch’ and ‘Cottonmouth’ are testament to that. Vocally the delivery is strong, but lyrically not so much.

Overall, though, this is a decent album. It won’t be one you stick on all the time, but if you fancy a bit of groove and some heavy riffs with a bit of fun, then Weed Is Weed’s Blunt Force Trauma (Ripple) is on point. This could very well become a stoners’ manifesto.

6.5/10

Weed Is Weed on Facebook

TOM DONNO

Hang The Bastard – Sex in the Seventh Circle

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Steve Tovey

Picture the scene. It’s a slate grey sky and a howling wind. It’s a Saturday lunchtime and you have a hangover straight out of the lower reaches of Hades. Going to watch a band might be the last thing on your mind. But this is what I’m doing at the UK Hammerfest Festival in North Wales. And what a great decision this was. The band in question were Hang The Bastard who proceeded to tear me and all the lucky souls who had clambered out of their sleep pits a proverbial new one, rip our collective faces off and send our hangovers back to their sulphuric origins. Marvellous stuff.

It’s these fond memories of face-ripping and adrenaline surges that preface the listening of this new opus and this fledgling band’s second full length album. The charmingly monikered Sex in the Seventh Circle (SOAR/Century Media) is as pumped up as a steroid doping muscleman, as gnarly as an old tree branch and full of gusto and effervescent promise. If you wanted a decent example of what heavy metal sounds like today then you could do much worse than land here.

Sex in the Seventh Circle is respectful of its heavy metal lineage but not to the extent that it is a mere facsimile of a Black Sabbath album; on the contrary, there are more riffs here than you can shake a particularly sticky stick at; riffs that Crowbar or Down would be very pleased to call their own but there’s loads more going on than praying at the Iommi altar.

On the opening track ‘Keeping Vigil’, the band conjur such a spectacular cacophony of noise and bludgeoning intent that you worry that by throwing everything, including (if you listen hard enough) the kitchen sink, into four minutes of throat grabbing attention that they won’t have anything left for the rest of the album.

Ye of little faith, listener. Whilst ‘…Vigil’ is a serious statement of intent, it is by no means the high point of the record. The aural swampy stew that is ‘The Majestic Gathering of Goetia’ wears its New Orleans sludge like a freshly inked tattoo whilst I dare you – I absolutely double and triple dare you – not to headbang during the glorious title track. There, I can see you doing it already.

It would not be responsible of me to pass up this review without making comment on Tomas Hubbard’s astonishing vocal performance. To say it is marmite is an understatement. It is probably the defining sound of the record but also the element that will enrage as many as it delights. From guttural roar through to black metal-esque screeching, one can be in little doubt that there are not many bands that sound like this. To these ears, that is part of this band’s charm. It would be really easy to put together a record with plenty of clean singing, big choruses and so forth but then Hang The Bastard would end up sounding like every other band around who have a copy of Never Say Die.

It is testimony to their self-belief and their ambition that they have created a record that sounds this distinctive and so self-evidently contentious. It’s clear that Hang The Bastard want to sound like one band only- and that’s Hang the Bastard. ‘Sex in the Seventh Circle’ has echoes of stoner, doom, sludge and classic metal easing through its grooves- so what? At the end of the day ‘Sex in the Seventh Circle’ is, labels aside, proper, heavy, grown up fun.

7.5/10

Hang The Bastard on Facebook

MAT DAVIES

Deathkings – Destroyer

Posted on September 12, 2014 by News Team

This vinyl reissue of the debut album from LA quartet Deathkings, originally released in 2011 and now remastered to split the original three tracks into four, wraps a doom / sludge centre inside a lazy stoner vibe, for the most part decorated in a bellowing roar reminiscent of Kurt Windstein or Matt Pike. The slow, pulsating start to Destroyer (Midnite Collective) verges on melancholic until a deep, buzzing riff meets drums burying themselves into the mind, with the accompanying lead possessing a mournful feel. The quieter bridges of opener ‘Halo of the Sun’ have an introspective air occasionally touching on drone, with clean vocals evoking Eddie Vedder’s more subtle moments. These mantras give added depth and meaning to a brutally heavy yet hypnotic track, an aching sadness blending with resigned pleas for sense and sanity.

There are no prolonged repetitive passages here, but that gives the album magnetism. A metronomic pulse opens ‘Martyrs Vol. I’ leads to a slowly pounding, grinding anger; a passionate vocal performance dragging along a protesting rhythm section which, despite being dynamic, is delightfully laconic on occasion. The rumbling bass of ‘Martyrs Vol. II’ gives a sedentary yet constant movement to a tragic tale, told with such feeling that it’s impossible not to empathise with the victims. The strange organic structure shows adventure and points to a progressive sensibility, but there are no ineffective noodlings or indulgent drifting, every ingredient is crucial to the story.

The tortured roars and chants of the closing title track are carried by a latent beat and gently throbbing riff which, during moments of swelling crescendo, burst with a paradoxical euphoria whilst being accompanied by brief spiralling leads. A chant of the Bhagavad Gita quote made infamous by Oppenheimer ushers in a delicate, mournful passage where the band’s purpose – despair of destruction – becomes clear, it’s a message constantly emphasised through fluctuating elements of power and lamentation to the close.

Despite appearing a little aimless and dull on first listen, repeated plays open up the emotion, intricacy and creative glory of a quite spellbinding set.

8.0/10.0

Deathkings on Facebook

PAUL QUINN

Wo Fat – The Conjuring

Posted on August 13, 2014 by News Team

Not everybody has the attention span for songs that boil over the four-minute mark and when done badly, this type of music can sometimes be a chore to listen to. Wo Fat is a threesome from Texas whose songs have become longer and longer with each release, while their number of tracks has become shorter. Boasting a stoner-rock sound, with some doom and psychedelic tendencies, The Conjuring (Small Stone) is the bands fifth studio album since their 2003 beginnings, and like its two predecessors it is made up of only five tracks and yet consists of over 40 minutes worth of music. Mostly a solid listen, The Conjuring does however have some weak points that let it down.

Starting with the slow burning, southern tones of title-track ‘The Conjuring,’ it’s clear from the off that riffs-a-plenty are once again going to feature here and so they do throughout. ‘Read The Omens,’ one of the shorter tracks, is also one of the best; its upbeat and quick-tempo start continuing to remain throughout, while the excellent ‘Beggars Bargain’ ups both the southern beat and creativity even more. The Conjuring however is not all imaginative gold as ‘Pale Rider From The Ice’ suffers from dull moments as does closing number ‘Dreamwalker’, but on a larger scale. Weighing in at 17 minutes long, the final track of the album doesn’t have enough substance to justify its length and so the result is one of indifference.

The Conjuring doesn’t exactly bring anything new or exciting to the stoner-doom-rock genre, but it isn’t a bad effort within it. Fans of the band will be pleased with the new output, even if it doesn’t transcend their previous efforts and if you’re new to Wo Fat and enjoy this type of music, The Conjuring is worth a listen.

Or at least most of it is.

7.0/10.0

Wo Fat on Facebook

EMMA QUINLAN

Ancient Altar – Ancient Altar

Posted on July 29, 2014 by News Team

It’s time for a new album from Scott Carlson, folks! But before all you Death-heads start foaming, this is the Iron Mtn. founder member, and for some of us that’s even more exciting. The LA quartet delivered only one half-hour EP of sick psych doom instrumentals during their short life, but it was enough to get the underground internet yattering.

New project Ancient Altar, formed by Carlson and fellow ex- Mtn. man Bill Cavener, seems set to fan those flames further.

This self-titled debut album (Midnite Collective) takes a different angle, being a nasty, sludgy little number. There’s a wonderfully deep tone to opener ‘Tidal’ thanks to a rumbling bass and a beefy production, retaining a mere hint of fuzz. A largely doom-paced opening to the track sees diseased roars and a malevolent hiss cover throbbing, low-end guitars, vaguely reminiscent of 50’s rock ‘n’ roll. That mellow riffing wears a dramatic and doleful face on the gloriously growing swell of ‘Ek Balam’, with the eventual quickening of the beat opening the gates to a brooding yet barrelling stoner growl almost black in shimmering sections as the track progresses. The lead work is all low chords, understated yet beautifully orchestrated to heighten the effect. It is a full five minutes before that hostile wail seeps evil gloop over the speakers, yet the track hasn’t suffered without it. In fact, on occasion, the roar descends into deranged territory akin to Captain Caveman, introducing (for those who remember the cuddly troglodyte) a sense of levity where there should be only pain and hatred.

There is, however, more than enough to compensate. Closer ‘Pulled Out’places the listener in a dank, desolate place with what is initially an almost balladic pace and tone and the track gradually builds as rhythms and drums lift and strengthen a slightly shimmering lead, the agonised roar telling a tale of real loss.

With such bruisingly heavy yet achingly emotive landscapes evident through a rich, dark and weighty tapestry of sheer enmity, this is an intriguing first foray possessing no little invention.