Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: Like last their debut in last year’s Sign of the Cloven Hoof, the second album from New Zealander doom foursome The House of Capricorn – titled In the Devil’s Days – is cumbersome. Surpassing that record’s 59 minutes with a full 72-plus, they stretch the limits of the CD format with their sophomore outing. Where the two to-date efforts differ, however, is in what The House of Capricorn do with that time.
The first album adhered far more strictly to a traditional doom aesthetic than does In the Devil’s Days (released via Swamps of One Tree Hill), which from its very beginnings in ‘All Hail to the Netherworld‘ couples cultish or semi-Satanic lyrical themes with a mid-to-late-‘90s Roadrunner Records influence (think Life of Agony and maybe even some groove-metal-era Machine Head, tonally) primarily showing up in the shades of Type O Negative green permeating that song and others like ‘To Carry the Lantern’, ‘Veils’ and, to a lesser extent, the closing title cut.
The House of Capricorn still get down with more genre-minded doom – 10-minute second track ‘Les Innocents’ is almost a direct port of the progression behind Black Sabbath’s ‘Black Sabbath’ – but even that is filtered through a style more the band’s own than what came through on the first record (it’s irrelevant to note, but Type O Negative covered that Sabbath track as well on the first Nativity in Black tribute and redid the lyrics for their The Least Worst of Type O Negative compilation).
Perhaps expectedly, In the Devil’s Days finds its greatest triumphs in the stretches most unique to the band. There’s a Euro-doom drama blended into ‘Veils’ and a Misfits punk bass line from Ami Holifield on ‘Coffins & Cloven Hooves’ that create an expectation of diversity in the material that the band well lives up to.
Continue reading: The Obelisk: REVIEW: The House of Capricorn, In the Devil’s Days
Courtesy of JJ Koczan / The Obelisk.
Tags: Album of the day, doom, In the Devil's Days, JJ Koczan, Occult Rock, Swamps Of One Tree Hill, The House of Capricorn, The Obelisk
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 30th, 2011 at 8:56 am and is filed under 2011, 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.
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