Totem - Totem - [I Hate Records]

2007-05-18

Sweden's I Hate Records keep on signing great doom bands, Totem are one of their latest, and certainly among their best.

This MCD contains 3 tracks of real 70's tinged doom, with tuned down guitars with plenty of fuzz and some smoked Wah-Wah, a dirty bass bottom, heavy & crashing drums, some nifty 70's Hammond and one of the best female vocalists I've run across for some time.

Musically the band takes a lot of early Sabbath and adds some 70's Psychedelia, the Hammond brings in just the right amount of melody to the whole dirty sounding mix, and the vocals stand on top of the pile and tie it all up fantastically. Though all the material here is great, it's the psychedelic jam that is the third track which proves to me just how good this band really is.

Not too much to elaborate here, this band is going places, they just got everything that was right in 70's music right in here, a fine reminder of what doom/stoner metal should sound like.

Alon Miasnikov