SwampCult - The Festival (2016)
Built around H.P. Lovecraft's short
story “The Festival”, SwampCult's new album of the same name aims
to provide an aural channeling of visiting an old village and
becoming embroiled in blasphemous rites. Working in a retro/Italian
doom style, with excerpts from the story worked into the vocal
presence, the band brings forth a malevolent atmosphere with
simmering undertones, while the aggression of the regular singing
seems to be giving voice to the village's perils instead of the
protagonist.
And though the structuring of the album
does a good job of matching the story's pacing, with each song titled
after a significant development in the narrative, the band's playing
is energized and doom-blaring from the start, instead of working
their way up to the dread as the story does. Generally speaking, the
level of intensity doesn't change much over the course of the album,
keeping the crunch and growl of drums, bass, and guitar going
steadily. There's a few interludes focusing on the atmospheric
touches, like bells and inarticulate grunting, but these tend to last
less than ten seconds each (a big exception being “The Rite”,
which goes in-depth with them), making the non-musical sounds feel
like token embellishments instead of essential details of the story
being told.
That said, the riffs are good at
swaying the listener along into their momentum and grooves, the mood
is effectively coherent, and the retro doom stylings give things a
sheen of antiquity without having to resort to early twentieth
century instrumentation. Even so, the album sits at a weird
balancing point, with music too conventional to capture the story's
mood for fans of Lovecraft's writing, yet so wrapped up in the story
they picked as to offer little draw for those unfamiliar with it. But the effort and dedication put into bringing The Festival
into metal life is admirable, and those who keep an ear out for doom
which tries to flex its style in unusual ways would do well to check
this release out and judge it by their own tastes.
~ Gabriel
For Fans Of; Count Absurdo, Dimaension
X, Possessor, Space God Ritual, Space Mirrors
~
No comments:
Post a Comment