With one weathered hand full of graveyard soil, you squeeze your nails into it's palm til' blood starts dripping down your arm. This record is such a rite in and of itself, full of ravenous tunes that bring glorious little blisters to eardrums aplenty. It is also a corpse ridden-boat being cast off into the great river of closure, a farewell to arms for the band that exemplified the golden age of 80's doom metal. The very least you can do is salute as your speakers spew some glorious riffage from the boys who did it best of all.
Dreadful, droning dream-hazed doom metal brought to sonic eminence through dissonances unbound and the lonely, graven echoes of an acoustic guitar abandoned in the wastes. A soul could cry to this.
Poppier than any of Doom/Alt. rock outfit's Aиατнεмα's doom heralding LPs up until that point, the transitory Judgement retains enough morbidity and atrophic edge to satiate their Gothic consumer base whilst managing to sneak in numerous memorable moments [dare I say it, "radio friendly"] below the studio-induced haze (mid-tempo heartbeater 'Deep' and soot-laden anthem 'Pitiless' being my elected representatives in court at the moment).
Moody this is, but weaksauce it ain't, and it should serve as a lovely springboard for anyone with even the slightest remote interest in output by the brothers Cavanaugh.
Intriguingly, it is not common knowledge to the masses at large that Columbia is home to awesome things besides drug dealers. Nevertheless, those who do not know of warlock warbler Dagon and his thrashy black metal ensemble Iиquisiτioи are missing out on an awe inspiring discography of debauchery, pissed off space demons and enough dimension-shattering guitar/blast beat asswhoopery to satisfy even the most degenerate rabble.
Black and brooding prog. rock from ye old Italia, but executed via a wonderful modern sensibility in tow with darksome occultic leanings. Come all ye faithful and indulge thineselves...
More classic thrash/doom metal courtesy of Satan and his demonic cohorts. Features a mindbogglingly great cover of Black Widow's classic dark prog. suite 'In Ancient Days'.
Iron Maiden meets L.A. glam with some good old fashioned sword n' sorcery pulp to fill in the gaps. The fact you can actually hear those monstrous baselines roar through your speakers (unlike a lot of heavy metal from yonder) make this late 80's masterpiece an even sweeter deal than you'd believe possible. Don't waste my kindness here!
A rather controversial and occult bunch within the canon of old school prog. rock, Jacula (who would later be peddling great dark prog. under the moniker Antonius Rex) supposedly distributed this little beaut debut in limited supply to various esoteric organizations of dubious intention and identity throughout Italy. Thus, the validity of this record actually being made in 1969 is a question that may never be fully answered because nobody seems to know anyone with an original vinyl copy. Darn cults and their secretiveness....
Still, questions of release authenticity aside, this is a damn fine record. Cheesy church organ, creepy mantras and some way-ahead-of-its-time sounding doom-laden guitar work all meld together into some kind of delicious tandem. Thus, depending on your mood, its either the silliest stuff in existence or the most essential album within a record collection when your in a ghoulish state of mind.
Now HERE be a real one-of-a-kind bonefied musical goldmine for you asshats, and one that happens to be local to the city I grew up around! The Great Tyrant were an experimental and ridiculously amazing guitarless trio from Ft. Worth, TX, made up of vocalist Darron Beck, drummer Jon Teague and the recently deceased bass virtuoso Tommy Atkins, whom all together specialized in brilliantly blowing the minds of anyone who walked into the bar they happened to be jamming at with their phenomenal synthesis of Zeuhl, Scott Walker theatrics, doom metal mania and a healthy dose of meat-tearing synth-punk atmosphere to complete the picture.
This is a six track, 39 minute monstrosity of an odyssey where you are faced with surreal onslaughts of audio that could one day change the world. As the blogger who got his lucky, grubby paws on it originally pointed out, this music has no true sonic peer. There are influences, passing recollections of bands we might have heard in the past, but nothing more than that: The Great Tyrant is an entity in and of itself.
Get lost in this masterpiece and sacrifice a cow to the cosmos for giving this band the means to record. Mother Earth is a better, darker place for it. R.I.P. Mr. Atkins!
