2007-11-24
UK's doom merchants
The Prophecy has been formed on in 2001, but listening to their second album 2007's Revelations it's just a great flashback to the early 90's when bands such as
Paradise Lost,
My Dying Bride and
Anathema have just released their first albums and pushed forward the British Doom Metal scene. Sometimes I find myself missing those days, when bands had put more energy and thought into the lyrics and music and less with how to reach perfect production values. Revelations does have a good production, but the music is main thing here.
The first time I've played the CD I couldn't believe that this is a contemporary metal album; and that's a good thing - I must say that this is one of the best Doom Metal albums that I've heard in recent years.
The album begins with a mesmerizing tapping guitar solo in the opener "Odyssey" - which is a perfect way to delve deep into this album, Matt Lawson's vocals fit in a perfectly, effortlessly moving from growled vocals to the clean parts.
As acceptable in doom metal albums, the length of the songs is between 7 to 14 minutes, yet they remain very much varied and interesting, there are plentiful role changes in the vocals, surprisingly tasteful guitar solos and great rhythm guitars & bass lines which fit in perfectly with drum work, courtesy of ex-My Dying Bride session player John Bennet.
One of the things that make this album work is that the band members are doing such great work in using elements from classic heavy metal bands, such the melodic guitar solos and merging them into the doomy, epic songs they weave, and they make it fit in naturally. It may sound like a mixture between
Iron Maiden and
The Sisters Of Mercy in the form of a doom metal band, yet these guys do it in their own unique way, and they make it work.
I found each and every song in the album to be strong enough and interesting; therefore I can't pinpoint a certain favorite, though I've listened to it more than a few times. Currently my favorite songs are Revelations, which begins as a relaxed Doom/Gothic rock song, and then turns inside out, thus throwing the listener down into the band's atmospheric cold world of doom, before lurching forwards into an array of amazing guitar solos and growled vocals. In the last few days it was the last song, Broken – that got my attention, these are 14 minutes of high quality doom metal.
This is one release that is a must for old school doom metal fans who, like me are into old Anathema, My Dying Bride & Paradise Lost, especially during their 1992 release: "Shades of God" period.
I personally can't wait for the next release from these masters of doom!
Gal Gur-Arie
