Foolhardy of Church Of Void to announce that they are “the spearhead of the new wave of traditional heavy doom metal” when that bandwagon has been rolling since Reverend Bizarre and Warning inspired a glut of plummy-voiced, epic-riffed melancholy circa the mid-00s – plus Dead Rising sounds like most of its inspiration comes from latter-day Paradise Lost and Alice In Chains.
This Finnish quintet (featuring ex-members of black/folk metal also-rans Horna and Battlelore) lob in a few unorthodox tricks in an attempt to keep things interesting – witness the title track’s blastbeat and mellow acoustic chamber-orchestral outro – but generally the riffs and arrangements are unmemorable.
Although the playing and production is tight, crisp and slick, Harley Warlock’s vocals are at times wayward and over-ambitious, except when pastiching Aaron from My Dying Bride, as he does on Owls Are Listening and Little Child Lost. The latter, along with Entity Of Kalypso, are the only songs that warrant the ‘traditional doom’ tag, and they’re also the only good songs here.
