Album of the day: Rituals of the Oak – Hour of Judgement

Lovingly pinched from HellrideMusic.com: Rituals of the Oak issued a very promising two track demo less than a year ago so this full length has been eagerly awaited by many in the doom community. Very well done straight up doom metal is always a welcome thing round the Hellride board and Hour of Judgement delivers just that over its entire length and without a trace of hesitancy or variation in quality.

‘Hour of Judgement’, demo favorite, title track and full scale doom juggernaut, leads things off with a massive dose of doom purity. The slow, mournful and altogether metallic riffing of the guitar, the restrained punctuation of the percussion, the rhythmic / riff bridge of the bass and over it all the emotive yet restrained vocals of Sabine Hamad bring the doom in a very purified form.

All elements slot in perfectly with each other and as is often the case with quality this release is well served by what is not there as well as by what is. The guitars are thick but not over the top, the bass solid and sure, but not immensely fat or crushing, the drums authoritative but not canonic and the vocals powerful, but not gut wrenching. Now before you take those all as negatives, harken to this fact: all together it has a mesmerizing power well served by the somewhat spartan and austere approach.

Continue reading:  HellrideMusic.com – Rituals of the Oak – Hour of Judgement.

Tags: album of the day, doom, Eyes Like Snow, HellrideMusic.com, Michael Ballue, Sabine Hamad

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 5:30 pm and is filed under 2010, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.