In February 2011, Cathedral announced that they will disband after one more album, entitled “The Last Spire”, which will be released in April 2013. Even further, they even played their official final show on December 3rd 2011.
Back then vocalist Lee Dorrian explained, “It’s simply time for us to bow out. Twenty one years is a very long time and it’s almost a miracle that we managed to come this far!.”
Honestly, I never was a huge doom metal supporter, nor Napalm Death fan back in their furious grindcore days. When Lee Dorrian left Napalm death in 1989 to form Cathedral with Mark ‘Griff’ Griffiths (a Carcass roadie) and Garry ‘Gaz’ Jennings (formerly of thrash metal upstarts Acid Reign), I wasn’t really interested. But I have to admit it, their 1991 debut album, “Forest of Equilibrium”, it’s one of its kind, something disturbing, extremely dark and uniquely heavy. Now, nine albums later, I hope that Lee Dorrian will have second thoughts and “The Last Spire” will be only a station, and not the final destination in the journey of Cathedral. Read more Cathedral – The Last Spire (2013)
doom metal
Sorrows Path – The Rough Path Of Nihilism (2010)
Formed in November 1993, the Greece Sorrows Path on their second album delivered powerful, complex, quality Metal merging Heavy and Progressive elements with Death flavored intensity. Think of something like Iron Maiden playing Candlemass songs. Perfect and absolute stainless steel!
Technical and brutal, the 12 songs of “The Rough Path Of Nihilism” are both flavored by symphonic and Doom elements generating a massive sound and deeply dark, gloomy and epic vibe. Their music have a dark, tragic taste – which definitively reflects their own personal tragedy filled history.
Singer Angelos Ioannidis have a theatrical approach which mainly reminds me of Bruce Dickinson and Jon Oliva (Savatage).
“The Rough Path Of Nihilism” it’s an extremely compact, complex, flawless and unfortunately not enough known, publicized release. Read more Sorrows Path – The Rough Path Of Nihilism (2010)
Process of Guilt – Faemin (2012)
With strong roots back to Doom and Dark Metal, formed in 2002, Process Of Guilt bring darkness and contorted heaviness from the sunny Portugal.
After self-releasing two demos, “Portraits of Regret”, respectively “Demising Grace”, in 2006 they delivered their own-flavored debut album entitled “Renounce”.
Their second full-length “Erosion” was released in 2008 followed by performances while sharing the stage with acts as diverse as The Ocean, Intronaut, Minsk, A Storm Of Light, Katatonia, Napalm Death and Rotten Sound.
3 years after the release of “Erosion” the band release their third – and deadly – album. For only €5 you can download the digital album, five epic and grinding songs, revealing a new level of darkness, contortion and heaviness which will definitively nail you down. Be prepered for the collision! Read more Process of Guilt – Faemin (2012)
Cowards – Shooting Blanks And Pills (2012) Free download!
Gathering current and ex-members of Sickbag, Death Mercedes, Hangman’s Chair, Eibon, Glorior Belli, Dacast, Colossus of Destiny, the Parisian Cowards delivered their 38 minutes of raging fury and filth, merging Hardcore, Sludge/Doom and Black Metal into their debut effort entitled “Shooting Blanks And Pills”. The album will be officially co-released on 30 June 2012 by Throatruinner Records and Hellbound Records. The digital version is already available for free download (name your price) on the official Bandcamp page of the record label, while the 12” LP will be out in late june and limited to 300 copies on black vinyl.
Disturbing, twisted, dark and intense, the 6 tracks of the album are still impressively musical, melodious, Cowards sounds like a mixture of Black Sabbath and Motorhead with Eyehategod and Deathspell Omega, the perfect combination of heaviness and rawness with classic approach, riffing and contorted dark vibe. Read more Cowards – Shooting Blanks And Pills (2012) Free download!
Paradise Lost – Tragic Idol (2012)
Hopefully this will be a “lucky 13” – although this is quite a dark and heavy one. Scheduled to be released on 23 April 2012, the upcoming 13th studio album by Paradise Lost is 101% classic Metal with strong roots back to Doom and Gothic and eventually since their 1991’s second album, “Gothic”, the band did not delivered something like this. Just like two decades ago the album was written by Nick Holmes and Gregor Mackintosh, drummer Matthew Archer left the band in 1994 and after several rotations, behind the drum kit since 2009 is Adrian Erlandsson, but although, the band seems totally unchanged. In a good sense. We know, the road back here was not so smooth and flawless as it might seem, but what’s matter it’s we are here now. Well, I’m aware, the journey might be much more significant then the final destination, but this is quite a different philosophical issue. So, I love “Tragic Idol” as it is, I loved it as I saw the cover for the first time. Read more Paradise Lost – Tragic Idol (2012)
Rorcal vs. Solar Flare – Split (2011)
From Hollywood to Melbourne and from soul to pop and from blues to metal, Solar Flare (in different forms) seems to be a quite popular name among artists. I dug till China and back, but it was kind of “mission impossible” to find anything about this particular Solar Flare. Finally I get some help from the Domino Media Agency and about this “Swiss doom conspiracy”.
Switzerland already delivered several exciting products this year, and the land of 26 cantons seems to be very resourceful also in metal. Rocal was formed in 2006 in Geneva, Switzerland and last year their released their fifth record, “HELIOGABALUS” – which is a single 70 minutes monolithic piece. Solar Flare is a side-project from Impure Wilhemina formed also in Geneva by Michael Schindl (Guitar, vocals), David Schindl (Drums), Thierry Baertschiger (Guitar) and Didier Baertschiger (Bass) in 1998. In 2006, the band suffered several line-up changes: David and Thierry leaved Geneva, and were replaced by Mario Togni (drums) and Alexandre Müller (guitar).
This collaborative split is exclusively available on Call of Ror label’s e-shop and for entire streaming on SoundCloud. Read more Rorcal vs. Solar Flare – Split (2011)
Rorcal – Heliogabalus (2010)
74 minutes and 13 seconds, “Heliogabalus” it’s the single track of Geneva’s (Switzerland) experimental black/doom/drone metal band Rocal formed in 2006.
The band’s members Junior, Bruno, Diogo, JP and Ron exploring the darkest side of the post/experimental-metal, a quite painful journey through some deep dark moments, sometimes quite mysterious ones, soundtrack-like shady, minimalist construnctions, contra-balanced by raw black metal explosions, noisy metal grindings.
Be prepared for suffering and torture… Read more Rorcal – Heliogabalus (2010)
My Dying Bride – Evinta (2011)
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of My Dying Bride’s existence, “the band embarked upon a special project to re-work familiar melodies and themes from their extensive catalogue into long, flowing symphonic compositions, incorporating new vocals and passages from Aaron Stainthorpe. Sharing vocals is professional opera singer Lucie Roche, a talented soprano from France. These arrangements have been brought to life in co-operation with keyboard maestro Johnny Maudling (of Bal Sagoth fame) as well as a clutch of talented classical musicians and will be released on May 30th as ‘Evinta’, as a 2 disc set & also a deluxe 3-disc edition with 64 page book, inspired by My Dying Bride’s illustrious recordings of the past two decades.” Read more My Dying Bride – Evinta (2011)
Brotherhood Of Sleep – Dark As Light (2011)
It’s not quite my favorite genre, but “Dark As Light” still stir up the interest, it’s a gloomy and dynamic travel into the psychedelic soaked heavy side of instrumental doom. It’s quite funny, a warm, glowing orange cover for this kind of pretty dark and – no better match right now in my mind – oppressive music.
The band was formed in Athens, Greece, in Autumn of 2006 by George G. – guitar (ex-Choir Macabre) and John K. – guitar (Afformance). Later they were joined by drummer Serafim G. (also of Uranium Cardinals) and without pre-set ideas on how or what to play they’ve started rehearsing giving birth to the first main riffs that would later on constitute the nucleus of what was next to come. They released their self-titled debut album in 2009 and “Dark As Light” is their second full-length album consist in four elaborated and extensive tracks – the shortest one have 11.32 minutes. Read more Brotherhood Of Sleep – Dark As Light (2011)
Orchid – Capricorn (2011)
There are at least six bands called Orchid: a hardcore band from Amherst, Massachusetts considered by many to be one of the pioneers of the post hardcore sound and disbanded in 2002; a doom metal band from San Francisco, California; an indie-pop band from Poznan, Poland, a rock band from Halifax, Nova Scotia; a “post-prog” band from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, etc. Theo Mindell – vocals and percussion, Mark Thomas Baker – guitar and moog synthesizer, Nickel – bass guitar and Carter Kennedy – drums are the members of the San Francisco’s based doom metal band and “Capricorn” is their latest release through The Church Within label. And hell yeah, this is Black Sabbather than Black Sabbath. It’s enough to listen songs like “Black Funeral” for instance. A world of witches, spells, dark forces and mystic fires breaks loose. And you believe it or not, this sounds goddamn fresh, still have hypnotizing power and unbelievable strength. Read more Orchid – Capricorn (2011)
