#258 Candlemass - Nightfall

From stoner doom, now, to a different place entirely, where doom metal has an atmosphere which is high in an entirely different way - the lofty, epic world encountered in Candlemass' second album - Nightfall.

Candlemass are a name thoroughly synonymous with epic-doom. The genre title itself, aside from describing perfectly the music one has in store listening to an album in the style, was also one coined by the band, with their debut "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus" certainly placing a name to it's own musical persuasion. Nightfall is the band's second full-length album, and is regarded as a classic - the first truly "classic" doom record, but not the last, that I plan to take a look at in this month of doom.

Epic doom is an interesting mixture of things - bits and pieces of conventional doom, traditional-metal, and more than a few operatic leanings all come together. The result is more airy and often more intricate than it's more conventional cousins, and at times, it is indeed more energetic and fast. Nightfall certainly has songs, like "At the Gallows End", which conform to this type, but, like the genre itself, it is still undeniably doom, and plenty of the album pounds away at the lower tempos quite contently, and very much effectively. It doesn't take much time or cognitive work to figure-out why it's called epic doom either. Nightfall is massively grandiose and, to overuse a phrase, very epic. In my experience, however much one loves metal, and in my case, that means a lot, listening to a Candlemass album like this one, or any similarly grand sounding metal-record very much carries a sense of formality - it feels higher than "plain-old-heavy-metal", despite there being no reason for supposing the latter to be in any way illegitimate. Throughout nightfall, above the crunchy, perhaps a little humble, guitar tone which propels the music along, all sorts of angelic epic parts soar - powerful synth seeps through the music, elevating it and giving is a vast atmosphere - the sort of thing which would sound superb in a cathedral, or flowing through the stones of some ancient auditorium.  Joining the synth is the golden, glowing lead-guitar, which weaves gorgeous and superbly memorable melodies and solos, which are often the musical aspect which really being the songs into their own.

One of the most notable features of the album are the extremely talented vocals of "Messiah" Marcolin, who delivered vocals on this, and a number of the bands subsequent works. I'm generally poor at reviewing vocals, and they're certainly a sphere I don't explore as much as the other aspects of a given album, but Marcolin's vocals immediately struck me as interesting to listen to - Aside from being very operatic, even theatrical, I also find them unpredictable to listen to - The notes which follow from one another aren't always the notes you were expecting, or even the ones which a music-theory purist would entirely approve of, but they are nonetheless very clearly deliberate and performed with great talent. This idiosyncrasy has the effect of rendering the vocals on the record extremely haunting, often in a beautiful sense, and also quite eerie - while the album is certainly one with a beautiful atmosphere, there are constant reminder that metal can also be devilish and a touch maniacal. They blend extremely well with the poignant, steady crashing of the drums, and the general, not-too-polished epic melody. I say not too polished, and mean it in a positive light, as musical grandiosity certainly doesn't mean perfectionism - the record hasn't taken hundreds of takes, and hasn't been painstakingly edited and produced, and frankly, it's far better for it, than if the band had taken the (relatively easy to grasp at) decision to have pristine, sterile production. I'm glad they didn't.

Nightfall is definitely on the required-listening-list for epic doom as a sub-genre, and sadly the album one which I discovered far later than I should have - I'd been enjoying epic doom for months before trying out the very fathers of the genre - Candlemass. Songs like "Samarithan", with it's fantastic crescendo and beautiful narrative, is reason enough for any self-professed doom enthusiast to be motivated to give the album a listen.

This is a 9/10.

Links:
Candlemass Official Site
Candlemass on Facebook
Candlemass on Metal Archives

I'm not sure what I'm going to look at next, but it's going to be more doom...

#257 Conan - Monnos

Welcome back, to the second review in a month dedicated to nothing but doom metal. Without further ado, it's time to take a look at Conan, and their primordial, bongwielding album of heroic stoner doom. 

If you've never worn ear-plugs to a gig, you might instinctively think that their use might be a little bit rude to the band. Actually, I find them to make the music more clear and "well-produced sounding". The night I saw Conan live, last year, was also the night I forgot to bring my ear-plugs to the gig. Consequently, after a deafening set which made the floor, the walls, and my innards shake, my ears were ringing for quite some time. Any such sonic experience leaves you curious to hear studio material, which, promptly, I did.

A lot of what Conan do, as do doom bands more generally, revolves around the riffs, of which Conan have a hefty, and thunderous stockpile. The bands riffs have two contrasting features; first and foremost, they sound primordial and brutish - as if instead of guitars, some long lost hairy race of people pounded them out on animal-hide drums. On the other hand, the riffs feel restrained, at times even minimalistic. Every chord is allowed time to simmer and rumble, even in the sections where the tempo rises a little. What emerges is in equal measures very powerful, and very clear, and all the more rewarding to listen to as a consequence. The soft but intense fuzz of the riffs never quite rises to a speaker-torturing level, but manages to spew noisily, and with a good deal of floor-vibration from anything you so choose to play it through. Not quite the skull-shaking, teeth-rattling insanity of bands like Electric Wizard, but instead a subtler, albeit no less powerful style, and one which isn't afraid to unleash some titanic lower-end. Joining the riffs are memorable vocals, which likewise utilise a straight-forward approach, the end result of which is equally effective as the straight-forward treatment of the guitar, and indeed drum work. Like the rest of the composition, the vocals manage to capture the primaeval, stone-cracking feel, with bellows and crystal clear yells which seem to strongly emphasise themselves, and really punctuate the music, serving both as memorable, and expanding the soundscape which the riffs create.

When you take a step back from the album, and in my experience of listening, only then, do you realise that most of the songs adopt a noticeably higher tempo than your usual fuzzy, wake-the-neighbours style doom metal. I think I can safely say that the album gains a real edge of this in terms of energy and flow - there is a pulse and vitality in the music which sometimes gets left behind, especially among the slower, more lumbering behemoths of the genre. That isn't to say that Conan don't also provide slow, earth-shaking sections which lend themselves to much rocking back and forth - there's a lot of that too - but it's a fair bet that the band have achieved an interesting balance between the energetic material,  and the grumbling, ferociously stoned sounding slow sections, and it's an album which is pleasingly more dynamic as a result. It's this fresh, dynamic feel to the music which I personally consider to be the highlight of the album, with the purring tone and crisp drums complimenting each other nicely. I wouldn't so much consider it a stoner-doom album to become lost in, and the band don't really indulge in too much psychedelic guitar playing, or embellished atmosphere, but in a way, that's yet another thing which is enjoyable - the album is a break from the trippy, Witches-Sabbath-filled place where this kind of music usually sends me, and my impression is that Conan are relatively straight-forward and proud of it - you get guitars, bass, drums and vocals, and no more - and with those four things, they have carved quite the megalith.

I'm not sure why I didn't review Conan within a few weeks of seeing them live, as I tend to do in similar circumstances. Ultimately, it's probably come in handy that I forgot to do so, because they're certainly a band I'm pleased to include in a themed month dedicated to what they do best. Frankly, I'm as impressed now as I was when I first heard the album.

Certainly an 8/10.

Links:
Conan Official Site
Conan on Bandcamp
Conan on Facebook


Check back soon for even more doom... 
 

#256 Pallbearer - Sorrow and Extinction

 Welcome to the first review of March, a month I've decided, quite arbitrarily, to dedicate to the interesting beast that is doom-metal. I plan to write reviews of well-established, and up-and-coming bands, and write a few  features solely dedicated to the sub-genre, for the entirety of the month. If you're a doom fan, be sure to check back from time to time to see what I've been up to.

***

Pallbearer are a band I've heard about here and there on the breeze, and one I eventually got around to listening to during the process of realising that there are a lot of new doom-bands out there at the moment, making a name for themselves. I wasn't sure what to begin this month of doom with, and a review of Pallbearer's début full length album, "Sorrow and Extinction" seemed as good a beginning as any.

There are numerous qualities which I associate primarily with doom-metal, and I can safely say that I picked up quite a few of them coming from Sorrow and Extinction - The album brings rough, crushing chords, crashing like waves onto a shoreline - but at the same time, it's a serene shoreline, with a lot of beauty. One of the first lines I though of while I first listened to the album, with a mind to reviewing it in future, was that this is doom-metal for the sunshine, not for the murky, rainy days. The vocals, as if sung from the top of a sun-soaked spire, soar high above the rest of the earthy, churning instruments - the slow, steady drums and tectonic, roaring guitars. I've not heard vocals like these in a while - they remind me somewhat of those from epic-doom outfit Atlantean Kodex, but at the same time, Pallbearer's vocals seem to be very idiosyncratic and memorable - through the album, the vocals deliver some fantastic melodies - each song has one, for the most part, and many of them are memorable from the very first listen. They're the kind of vocal melodies which are used often enough to embellish the songs nicely, but sparingly enough to feel precious when they arrive. In a lot of the songs, I found myself listening thinking "Oh, I hope the vocalist does that again". Likewise, the guitars deliver splendid, bright melodies which are probably on a par with the vocals, and certainly elevate the album heavenwards, speaking whispers of the epic side of the genre, particularly in songs like "Given to the Grave", in which synth is also called upon, to create a positively transcendent atmosphere.

Juxtaposed with it's brightness - even warmth, the album is undoubtedly sad. Perhaps not dark in atmosphere, but thickly laid with sorrow. The tower from which the vocalist sings is one of imprisonment, not elation, as they sing to the sea of crunching chords below. The lyrics certainly reflect this too, with poignant and poetic language, which certainly seems to add to the albums epic scale, and definitely makes it something of a journey through melancholy. Interestingly, for its scale and high majesty, the album isn't one I'd immediately label "epic-doom" - the epic atmosphere feels a little more organic than that - not insisting upon itself, in a contrived way, but instead coming across as just what happened when the band got together, wrote material and made music. In this respect, the album seems to make the best of both worlds, it's feet don't leave the ground absolutely, as reflected in the retention of an earthy, shuddering roar - even some stoner-doom psychedelic tendencies and notes which bend and sway almost merrily here and there, but at the same time, the music very much has its head in the clouds, and hauntingly, mournfully so. I don't often run into an album so intense, but at the same time, utterly listenable; I lost track of time more than once whilst listening to the album, and the songs seemed to fly by, despite their typically hefty length. Perhaps that says something about how absorbed the album can make the listener, whilst at the same time not making listening a chore. It's great when albums do that.

As you can no doubt tell, I'm rather impressed by the album, and I'm already interested to see what the band do next. I must confess, obvious as it may seem, there are plenty of "essential" doom releases I've missed out on so far, but, to me, I don't think I've ever encountered something quite like this. That, I think, is what this month of doom-metal is about - not just celebrating doom, but helping me to discover more of it.

This is 8/10.

Links:
Pallbearer Official Site
Pallbearer on Facebook

More doom to come...