Ghost - Opvs Eponymovs

Ghost (or is that Ghost B.C.?) have easily become one of the most over-rated bands in modern rock and metal, and it is sometimes easy for me to forget about their fairly awesome beginnings. It would possibly be super-hipster of me to consider them to have entered the realm of plebs and rocker dads (I played this for my Dad in 2011 and he didn't like it, FYI) but I'm gonna be unprofessional as fuck and just sweepingly generalise that everything Ghost has done Infestissumam onwards is a steaming pile of mediocre shit. As soon as I heard that fucking Abba cover, my relationship with Ghost was over.

Opvs Eponymovs still exists, however. It isn't as if I spin this thing often, but I would have considered myself a fan, and I own this on purple vinyl. I kinda saw it as everything I ever wanted King Diamond to be, and I was initially charmed with the band's image and kooky occult rock songs. On Opvs, Ghost played fun, quirky rock that was as infectious as it was stupefying. Case in point, "The Night Of The Witch", with one of the hammiest choruses ever written, is also one of the greatest things ever put to tape. The same can be said for "Prime Mover", and even "Elizabeth", to a degree. "Genesis" is a fantastic instrumental song and a perplexing closer to the album. 

I play this and remember the good ol' days, as I sit in my rocking chair with my whiskey and my hipster beard. Sometimes I like to think how much money Lee Dorrian has made off this band, but sometimes I can be a pointless asshole. Next!

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Cathedral - The Garden Of Unearthly Delights

As far as doom metal goes, Cathedral have always been one of my favourites. They were the band that introduced me to the genre in my youth, and therefore have always occupied a soft-spot in my blackened heart. Heading up to London Forum to catch the band's final show was something that will stick with me forever. The disbanded warriors of gloom have a varied and interesting back catalogue ranging from the downright heavy to the downright weird, and The Garden Of Unearthly Delights is about somewhere in the middle of that scale.

Endtyme and The VIIth Coming saw Cathedral's 90s experimental sound stripped right back to the brutal bare bones. Having once against mastered the medium of heavy in lieu of psych, The Garden Of Unearthly Delights sees the band beginning to re-approach their psychedelic tendencies through a far more clarified, less self-indulgent path. Stadium-fillers such as "The North Berwick Witch Trials" and "Corpsecycle" stand in stark comparison to the epic "Oro The Manslayer" or the 27-minute, obscenely progressive lurcher "The Garden".  

The stunning cover painting was provided, as almost always, by the incredible Dave Patchett. The classical chaos of Cathedral album sleeves always makes for an interesting staring match as their twisted doom unfolds. Man, I miss this band.

With The Dead - With The Dead

Fuuuuck me this shit is so heavy, I just had to get my oar in just incase the Doomfinder General shits out a review for this before me! I don't write about that much doom metal these days so I'll take this fairly rare opportunity to plug a new supergroup of slow. With The Dead features the original Electric Wizard backbone dynamic duo (later to perform as Ramesses) joined with ex-Cathedral/Napalm Death crooner and Rise Above Records CEO Lee Dorrian. Now how's that for a good fucking idea?

The result, perhaps expectedly, is somewhere between Dopethrone and Endtyme; a bludgeoning affair of smoggy doom riffery and organ-pulping bass tone. For every stoned wondering of what classic Wizard would have sounded like with Dorrian on vocals, there is now an answer, and that answer will bury you into the fucking ground. There's a bit of classic, trad-doom riffing on "Nephthys" and the odd solo but for the most part this is pure worship to the Wizard sound of old, topped with that magical Cathedral feel. It might seem obvious basing this review around pointing that out, but it's literally perfect. Have a goose. 

Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics

(Words by Richard Lewis, Doomfinder General)

Electric Wizard are... well you should all know who Electric Wizard are. In a just world every person alive should know who Electric Wizard are. If not, go and listen to the song at the bottom of the post, I'll wait...

Come My Fanatics is Electric Wizard's (Electric Wizard Electric Wizard Electric Wizard Electric Wizard) second album but it's the one where they really find their sound. More heaviness, more fuzz, more drugs, more horror movie samples and buckets of misanthropic psychedelia; the whole thing is just wonderful. There are so many good points about this album that it's hard to name them all. From the main riff on "Return Trip" (which I think is in with a shout of being the heaviest thing ever) to the amazing bassy psych of "Solarian 13", and everything in between. Words don't do it justice, so just go and listen to it instead.

Blood Ceremony - Blood Ceremony

Blood Ceremony's self-titled is one of my go-to feel good "doom metal" records (I use the term doom like that because I find that this isn't miserable enough to fall under the doom tag proper, although it does incorporate a lot of elements from that genre). As mentioned elsewhere on this website recently, my distain for the explosion in female-fronted edgy rock music continues to grow, but let's fuck all that trend-jocking shit for a minute and focus on Blood Ceremony.

Imagine mixing Black Sabbath, Jefferson Airplane and an enormously illegal quantity of opiates at a smoky blues club, and you're on the right track here. Songs about witches, covens, toads, wizards and smoking "black drugs from Saturn's bong" are abound, as is trippy flutework, masterful guitar sweepery and enough synthesizer alchemy to make Gary Numan prick up his ears. The opening song, "Master Of Confusion" is totally classic, and should be on the playlist of anyone with an inclination towards this type of stuff. The flute solo on "I'm Coming With You" is insane, and my favourite track is "Hop Toad", which is also mainly flute-driven.

I'm lucky enough to have caught these guys (and gal) live twice in the last 3 years, and I wouldn't hesitate in a heartbeat to go and watch them perform again. Stellar stuff! You can stream this on Spotify, buy it on CD or even take out a second mortgage to buy the Rise Above vinyl version, if you have a big enough hipster beard to qualify for that.

Now, onto those "black drugs"....