Djinn and Miskatonic - Even Gods Must Die (2017)
Hailing from India (and the excellent
Transcending Obscurity record label), Djinn and Miskatonic made their
debut with the album Forever in the Realm
back in the year of 2013. Now they're back, with another six songs
of doom and dread, rumbling bass and slow-moving riffs, and they're
well in their element.
Kicking
off with “I, Zombie” (no, not a cover of the White Zombie track),
the band plugs into a heavy current, waves of chords drifting back
and forth, as they dig into the opener for the better side of fifteen
minutes. Having made their demonstration of how well they handle
size, the band trims things back for a few following songs, before
returning to the ten-plus size for the last two. And through that
total hour of dirging, the band tests out some flavor experiments
while keeping the modern doom base firm. There's drizzles of black
and death, stretches of clean vocals (usually quickly countered with
guttural rasping), but the main drives are built on the backs of
workhorse riffs, just rolling on and on with some small twists worked
into their cycles.
The
biggest fault with the music, from my perspective, would be how
straight-forward it is. Both the album and band name suggest some
mystical elements, but what you get is pretty standard, if
jumbo-sized, modern doom metal from start to finish. There's no real
toying with unusual sounds (a spot of keyboards here and there would
have done wonders in that regard), and the steadiness of the weight
makes things feel more sloggish than crushing by the end of it all.
It's good stuff, just don't go into it expecting the psychedelic elements suggested by the cover art.
~
Gabriel
For
Fans Of; Brume, Electric Wizard, Major Kong, REZN, SwampCult
~
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