Iron Man - Black Night

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: If the elder’s fables are true, and there really is a cult of true doom, then I can’t help but feel that somewhere in the initiation process is Black Night, the 1992 debut offering from Maryland legends Iron Man. Among the most sought-after of the Hellhound Records catalog, it’s an album whose legacy has only grown with time. I don’t know if it’s a rite of passage or some kind of challenge to would-be cult inductees or what. Maybe you have to air guitar all of Al Morris III’s riffs while on fire or something. That would be cool in a very Beavis and Butt-Head kind of way.

Shadow Kingdom Records, whose reissue kung fu is like Bruce Lee in fast forward, capped off 2009 by re-releasing this rare doom gem, capturing the Iron Man lineup of Morris, Larry Brown (bass), Ron Kalimon (drums) and Rob Levey (vocals; also the man behind the Stoner Hands of Doom series of festivals) in their first incarnation after leaving behind their Black Sabbath cover band roots and trotting out their premiere batch of original material. With cuts like “Life After Death,” “Black Night,” “A Child’s Future” and classic album opener “Choices,” we can only be glad 18 years later that they did.

Continue reading: The Obelisk » Blog Archive » Iron Man’s Black Night Lives Again.
(Special thanks to JJ Koczan for his kind permission)

Las Cruces - Dusk

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: As the follow-up to 1998’s Ringmaster, Dusk (Brainticket / Metal Rising), the 2009 offering from San Antonio, Texas, doom bashers Las Cruces, is something of a surprise. Mostly because, since the band more or less called it quits after self-releasing the The Lowest End EP in 2001, there was a good chance we’d have never heard from them again. If for no other reason than because two out of the first three tracks on Dusk have the word “wizard” in their title, that would have been a damn shame.

But not only is Dusk a long time coming in the sense of it being a long time since the band put out their last release, but considering they got back together in 2004 and recorded the album between 2006-2007, it’s been a while on that scale as well. We can only wonder what caused the probably numerous delays that held it back from seeing official release, but finally holding a finished copy of the record, Las Cruces don’t seem to have missed a beat.

Continue reading:  The Obelisk » Blog Archive » Las Cruces Ride at Dusk.
(Very special thanks to JJ Koczan for the kind permission)

While Heaven Wept - Vast Oceans Lachrymose

Lovingly pinched from Hellride Music: Since the early 90s, Virginia doom collective While Heaven Wept have resided in the shadows; a criminally underrated unit which has consistently released quality, emotional doom of the highest order. Whether it be 1998’s Sorrow of the Angels or 2003’s masterful Of Empires Forlorn, the outfit spearheaded by vocalist / guitarist / songwriter Tom Phillips has always delivered the proverbial ‘goods’ in spades.

2009’s Vast Oceans Lachrymose just might be the band’s most ambitious outing yet, however, incorporating a wealth of new ideas into their musical mix, while remaining loyal to their classic, traditional doom sound from first note to last. Deeper progressive leanings and faster tempos signal the most radical changes for this record-showcasing that all does not move in slow-motion for While Heaven Wept, apparently-and this combination ultimately works to the band’s credit in spades.

Continue reading:  HellrideMusic.com – While Heaven Wept-Vast Oceans Lachrymose.

The Obelisk: You’re obviously schooled in doom. Where do you see The Wounded Kings fitting in with the doom lineage?
Mills: Ah fucking hell (laughs). You know, I’ve never really thought about it. I grew up listening to Saxon and Dio and stuff like that, and it was only a few years later I started listening to Candlemass and then onto Black Sabbath and stuff like that. Whether we fit anywhere between there, Electric Wizard, Solitude Aeturnus and all those people, I don’t really know. Where do you think we fit in?

The Wounded Kings

The Obelisk: There’s a lot of old school stuff about the record, but the way it’s recorded — the layering of the guitars — there’s a lot that’s modern about it.
Mills: It’s weird. If I’m honest, I’ve got a real soft spot for the old stuff like Dream Death and the very early Cathedral and everything, but when I’m recording the albums, I’m pretty much listening to Pink Floyd and classical music and classical soundtracks. Have you seen the film Perfume? There’s a real dark soundtrack to that, and I’m pretty much not listening to any doom at all when I’m writing or recording. I suppose, because I come from that early doom background, that sort of playing, when I’m writing I just don’t bother listening to that. Maybe I bring in some weird Pink Floyd and some classical aspects to it that gives it something a little bit different. It’s very difficult analyzing, because I just start writing, and George comes over and we just get together, and it spews forth, and that’s how it ends up.

The Obelisk: I know you have a couple shows coming up and you’re doing Roadburn, but are you in writing mode again now?
Mills: No, not at all at the moment. We wrote this track for the Cough thing and since that, we have just been rehearsing for the live stuff. For ages, we’ve had a half-hour set, and for Roadburn, we’ve got a full 60 minutes, so we’ve been working pretty hard in getting that stuff together. We’ve literally just focused purely on the live set. We’ve not played that many gigs. I think in total we’ve played four gigs, and we just want to make sure when people see us they’re blown away.

Continue reading:  The Obelsik – The Wounded Kings Interview with Steve Mills: Done and Dusted in the Shadows

Saint Vitus - Die Healing

Praise for Saint Vitus‘ Die Healing from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records:  Doom. Vinyl. Die Healing. Need we go on?? Doom metal fans, probably all you need to know is that this album by LA godfathers of doom Saint Vitus, never before on vinyl, and long out of print on cd, is now here. However, we will go on…

Nobody could have guessed it back in 1995, when this album was first released, but 2010 is shaping up to be a pretty good year for ol’ Saint Vitus. Not just one reunion show, but an extensive, well-attended tour! Vinyl reissues of their SST era records! And this, a lovingly crafted vinyl version (first time on wax!!) for what was their 7th and final full-length studio album before calling it quits! We also hear rumors of a NEW album being made. However, as much as we’ll be excited to hear it, there’s no way they can top THIS.

While it might have been their final record, a last hurrah, hardly noticed by an uncaring world, it was also one of their best ever. For one thing, it marked the brief return of their original and best vocalist, the amazing Scott Reagers. Apologies to Wino, who’s fronting the band for their current reunion… Some will differ, Wino certainly has his fans, we like him a lot too, Born Too Late and Mournful Cries are great albums, but let’s just say there’s no other singer quite like Scotty Reagers. Vitus was lucky to have had him in the first place, and lucky to have had him back for this. His dramatic and dynamic delivery, gloomy and ghoulish, yet classic castle-metal through and through, keeps us spellbound.

Guitarist Dave Chandler steps up with some great sludgy slo-mo Sabbathy riffs (of course) and wah wah’d out, psychedelic punk soloing (of course). The atmosphere is sooooo despairing. Opener “Dark World”, later covered by Reverend Bizarre, is a classic, what a riff! But that’s just the beginning… “One Mind”, “Let The End Begin”, “The Sloth”, “Return Of The Zombie”, heck all the tracks are awesome, any Vitus fan should agree. The entire album harks back to the feeling of their first few records in the mid ’80s, really as if Reagers had never left the band. And again his singing is crucial here, over the top wailing with a wretched, grotesque edge to it. Emotive and eccentric. Perfect for the plodding, fuzz-filled creepy-crawls that fill this pestilent platter. He might be singing about sloths and zombies (he IS singing about sloths and zombies) but damn does it sound sincere and MEANINGFUL – ignore him at your peril. Drop the needle on this and learn what it is to be doomed!!

While we should also list the abovementioned SST reissues, many of them must-haves too, this seemed even more exciting ’cause so few folks ever got the chance to get it, the cds were imports and it was one of the last releases on the label (Hellhound) before it folded. And like we said, there never ever was vinyl. Now there is, and fairly deluxe vinyl at that, complete with embossing on the cover for the Vitus logo. And yeah, of course it’s limited… even if it wasn’t, though, you gotta get it, we’d just be telling you to buy two of ‘em!!

Dwarr - Animals

Praise for Dwarr’s Animals from San Francisco’s Aquarius Records: Eccentric outsider doom metal from the ’80s, from waaaaaay down underground. Now hold up, if the words “doom” or “metal” make you think, not for me, think again (maybe). This isn’t like any metal you’ve ever heard, really. More like spaced out ’60s heavy psychedelic guitar rock (one song’s called “Heavy Vibrations”, man), overloaded also with shrill synth symphonics and trippy effects…

That’s where the “outsider” tag comes in, Dwarr being a one-man band, all the work of South Carolina multi-instrumentalist (but especially guitar!) Duane Warr (hence the name Dwarr), whom we get the impression is quite a character. It’s so DIY that the CDs have his phone number on ‘em, in case you want to get in touch. His privately pressed music comes off like a cough-syrup dosed mixture of Black Sabbath and Todd Tamanend Clark (whom you should know from the double CD anthology we raved about a few years ago). Or, The Happy Dragon Band playing Pink Floyd, from beyond the grave. Maybe a lo-fi Captain Beyond, on even more drugs than Captain Beyond were ever on. Or imagine if Bobb Trimble was an ’80s metaller, perhaps (and worked out in the gym a lot more?). Sorry to use so many almost equally obscure references, but it’s hard to compare this confusional beast to anything else.

Look at that insane cover painting, a surreal post-apocalyptic landscape (that’s a malevolent-looking Statue of Liberty sunken in polluted looking water next to a cave populated by long-haired, skull-faced cannibalistic mutants, with an avatar of Dwarr himself, we’re guessing, striking a heroic he-man pose in the upper right hand corner). The music itself is as surreal and apocalyptic and ridiculous as that image, matching up to it much more than most other “metal” albums ever match up to their cover art, both in subject matter and, ah, execution.

Just from the cover painting, let alone the music, this Dwarr album is SO perfectly Aquarius, you’d almost think we made it up. But no, Dwarr’s for real, something we’d vaguely heard tell of and been curious about for years, and finally went to the trouble of tracking down (not so hard, thanks to the Internet, now that everybody and their grandmother’s bands are on MySpace). And lo and behold, it turned out Dwarr had issued ALL four of his albums (two from the ’80s, two from the ’00s, believe it or not!) on compact disc. So we had to get a bunch of this one, his second, from 1986, probably his best and “heaviest”. A Record Of The Week, easy.

There’s 13 tracks, each one incredible (or incredibly strange). There’s nothing that’s NOT freaked out about this. Even the poppiest songs (like the title track “Animals”) are full of sluggish grooves, druggy lyrics, buzzing electronics, melodic stoned vocals, acid rock guitar (and acid WTF synth). Elsewhere it gets away from rock / metal song structure entirely, with interludes of eerie atmospherics, spacey soundscapes overlaid with ominous whispered declamations, and weirdass instrumentals, like the squirrelly, proggy bombast of “Chocolate Mescalyne”, a track that if you sped it up a lot would almost fit in on a Orthrelm album.

And then there’s the DOOM. Oh yeah, while it’s not “normal” doom it IS doom. Sludgy, Sabbath-riffed doom indeed, despite the trebly production. “Ghost Lover”, for instance, gives us the feel of both the Sabs’ “Iron Man” and “Electric Funeral”, and Duane’s vocals are particularly Ozzy-ish on the uber-heavy “Evil Lures” too… Great stuff if you really really appreciate the stranger, more psychedelic aspects of true doom artistry, the spirit is HERE.
Three cheers for avant garde new wave downer rock hippie heavy metal weirdness! That gives special thanks “to the Columbia High School Band for the use of their percussion instruments”.

We are so pleased to play a role in sharing this culter than cult classic with you, which by the way comes in fairly no-frills packaging, the cd in a thin cardboard sleeve with full-color album art front and back but no lyrics, liner notes, nothin’ like that. It’s pretty cheap though. Not that you should need any further incentive to pick this up, after reading our ravings above.

Cathedral

Keeping in the Cathedral tradition of delivering the best possible touring package it can, the band has announced the addition of Tokyo’s heaviest sons of Sabbath, Church of Misery OF MISERY, and the Orthodox-doom- meets-true-metal powerhouse that is Indianapolis’s THe Gates of Slumber.

Cathedral tour dates:

Apr. 26 – Manchester, UK – Academy 3
Apr. 27 – Dublin, IRE – The Village
Apr. 28 – Belfast, IRE – Limelight
Apr. 29 – London, UK – ULU
Apr. 30 – Glasgow, UK – King Tut’s
May 01 – Birmingham, UK – Academy 2

Cathedral will release its ninth full-length album and second for the Nuclear Blast label, The Guessing Game, on March 26 in Europe and on April 20 in North America.

Produced once again by Warren Riker , who also took care of the band’s last effort, The Garden Of Unearthly Delights, in 2005, The Guessing Game is one wild and unpredictable ride with one of the most unique and exciting acts the metal genre has got to offer! For the first time in the band’s history, they have recorded a double album that boasts thirteen tracks offering a colourful variety of musical styles and lyrical themes: “Requiem For The Voiceless”, for example, is pure, down ‘n’ out crawling doom — and the first animal-rights song in doom metal history! Then you’ll get classic stomping and grooving Cathedral material with the catchy “Painting In The Dark”, plus many songs wading through psychedelic and proggy waters — especially “Funeral Of Dreams”, featuring none other than Alison O’ Donnell of Mellow Candle (’70s Irish folk rock band) fame doing guest vocals.

It comes as no surprise that this time around Cathedral went as far as to include exotic instrumentation such as Mellotron and Sitar. And pay special attention to the lyrics of “Journeys Into Jade”: Lee Dorrian and Co. are celebrating 20 years of Cathedral with this one!

And what a way to celebrate this anniversary: traditional Cathedral cover artist Dave Patchett came up with one of his finest artworks in the band’s history, mirroring the themes and musical quirkiness of the album itself.

The Guessing Game track listing:

Disc 1:

01. Immaculate Misconception (02:24)
02. Funeral Of Dreams (08:28)
03. Painting In The Dark (06:18)
04. Death Of An Anarchist (07:12)
05. The Guessing Game (03:08)
06. Edwige’s Eyes (07:08)
07. Cats, Incense, Candles & Wine (06:01)

Cathedral - The Guessing Game

Disc 2:

01. One Dimensional People (02:30)
02. The Casket Chasers (06:41)
03. La Noche del Buque Maldito (a.k.a. Ghost Ship of The Blind Dead) (05:46)
04. The Running Man (08:46)
05. Requiem for the Voiceless (09:50)
06. Journey Into Jade (10:36)

Last year, Night Of The Vinyl Dead Records released Cathedral’s Caravan Beyond Redemption album on limited-edition double splatter vinyl with a gatefold cover. The LP, which was originally released by Earache in 1998, was limited to 500 copies.

Cathedral - The Guessing Game

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: A double album is always a curious read, and Cathedral’s ninth full-length, The Guessing Game, with which the legendary UK doom outfit celebrates their 20th anniversary, is no exception. All the more so considering The Guessing Game is so close to the 80-minute limit of what would fit on a regular compact disc that, if the band had nixed the two two-and-a-half-minute intros, the record would have fit easily. So it’s not like they’ve come up with such an abundance of material as a follow-up to 2005’s The Garden of Unearthly Delights, but the jeans are just a little too tight to hold what they’ve got. I think we’ve all been there at one time or another.

Please don’t take that as calling The Guessing Game bloated. As one of the bands who set the course for the genre of traditional doom with classic albums like 1993’s The Ethereal Mirror and 1995’s The Carnival Bizarre, they know what it takes to make a good record, and although I generally fall on the side of cut what you need to to make it work — to the point of agreeing with George Martin that The White Album should have been a single disc (would the world really miss “Rocky Raccoon” or “Revolution No. 9?”) — if after two decades of existence, Cathedral want to make a 2CD, I’m not about to fault them for doing so. After five years, I’m just happy to have a new record. Any issue of how to interpret whether to take it as one whole work or two separate albums is secondary to that. Maybe that’s The Guessing Game.

In any case, the remaining original and principal members of the band, vocalist Lee Dorrian (whose back story by now shouldn’t need retelling) and guitarist Garry “Gaz” Jennings, both give remarkable performances throughout The Guessing Game. From “Funeral of Dreams” and down the line of the first disc’s material, Dorrian’s voice is a constant high point. Even as “Funeral of Dreams” pays bizarre homage to ritualistic ‘70s prog — think bands like Black Widow and Coven — Dorrian stays in character and on point vocally. And it’s a hearty “holy shit” moment nearly every time Jennings kicks into a solo, perhaps most especially on “Painting in the Dark.”

Continue reading: The Obelisk » Blog Archive » Here’s a Cathedral Review that Would Also Have to Fit on Two Discs.
(Special thanks to JJ Koczan for the kind permission)

Cathedral - The Guessing Game

The Guessing Game track listing:

01. Immaculate Misconception
02. Funeral Of Dreams
03. Painting In The Dark
04. Death Of An Anarchist
05. The Guessing Game
06. Edwige’s Eyes
07. One Dimensional People
08. Casket Chasers
09. La Noche Del Buque Maldito (aka Ghost Ship Of The Blind Dead)
10. The Running Man
11. Requiem For The Voiceless
12. Journey’s Into Jade

Last year, Night Of The Vinyl Dead Records released Cathedral’s Caravan Beyond Redemption album on limited-edition double splatter vinyl with a gatefold cover. The LP, which was originally released by Earache in 1998, was limited to 500 copies.

Continue reading: BLABBERMOUTH.NET – CATHEDRAL: New Album Details Revealed.

Church of Misery - Live at Roadburn 2009

Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: Man, it was late when Japanese stoner doom legends — now in their 15th year of operation — took the stage at Roadburn 2009 at the 013 Popcentrum in Tilburg. Over on the main stage, Colour Haze was noodling out, and it was so packed in the side room that I could barely move, let alone get a look at vocal madman Yoshiaki Negishi as he plunged ever further into the sinister recesses of the human psyche. They’re going to be back there in 2010, and as a way to maybe bridge the gap one to the next, Roadburn Records / Burning World has issued their set from last year. As someone whose ears rang from it the next day and the day after, I can safely say it was the right move.

This is Church of Misery’s first live record, and it’s fitting that it would be from Roadburn, an environment in which the band is as appreciated as they’ll ever be, preaching not only to the converted, or to the choir, but to an entire order of boozed-up cult followers, gone mad on European weed and stoner riffs. For an unhinged act like Church of Misery — who take the riff-riff-riff formula so many stoner bands emulate to no end and actually make it sound dangerous — it was the perfect setting. They did tracks from their split with Sourvein (closer “For Madmen Only”), and from their Master of Brutality, The Second Coming and Houses of the Unholy albums. Even “Taste the Pain,” which can be found on a 1998 EP of the same name — or the Early Works compilation, for those who’d like the easy way out — makes an appearance.

Continue reading:  The Obelisk » Blog Archive » Church of Misery: ‘Burn to Raise Hell.
(Special thanks to JJ koczan for his kind permission)

Please click HERE for the audio stream of Church of Misery – Live at Roadburn 2009