Album of the day: Ramesses – Chrome Pineal

Lovingly pinched from The Sleeping Shaman: Since drummer Mark Greening and guitarist Tim Bagshaw defected from their previous employer and hooked up with bassist / vocalist Adam Richardson many moons ago they have slowly developed their claustrophobic take on doom into a towering, monolithic and hypnotic behemoth that draws from death metal as much as it does Floydian psychedelia. On this 6 track offering featuring 3 studio and 3 live tracks recorded in Denmark in 2007, Ramesses allow themselves to indulge the more “out there” Aspects of the band’s sound and serves as an intriguing and possibly essential entry into their rapidly expanding catalogue.

The opening title track is a lysergic piece of experimentalism that runs to over 9 minutes as it builds from a soft, Middle Eastern melody into a spiralling riff that evokes the spirit of the band’s namesake. Not so much a song as an instrumental journey through the Valley of the Kings. Kicking off with this track immediately throws the preconceptions out of the window and shows that there is more to Ramesses than down tuned sickness.

Fortunately the Ram’ faithful are well served with the next track ‘Blazoned Fauna’ which kicks off with a riff crustier than a syphilis sufferer’s underwear!!! Adam Richardson runs the full gamut of his vocal stylings here as he flows effortlessly from an acidic Ozzyesque wail to the blackened screeches he is possibly more known for. The oppressive production, while certainly not high tech by most modern standards, is steeped in reverb and sounds as though it was recorded during some sort of ritual mass in the Great Pyramid. This is about as dark and truly terrifying as doom has ever got.

Continue reading: The Sleeping Shaman – Ramesses ‘Chrome Pineal’ 12″ 2011.
(Courtesy of The Sleeping Shaman)

Tags: Adam Richardson, Album of the day, Chrome Pineal, Mark Greening, Ollie Stygall, Ramesses, Ritual Productions, The Sleeping Shaman, Tim Bagshaw

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 at 9:15 am and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day . 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.