R.I.P - In The Wind album review

R.I.P inhabit the same grimy underbelly Wino describes on the Saint Vitus classic Born Too Late: a world of gritty street life and badly-made lifestyle choices, delivered in a primitive blend of hard-rocking, uptempo doom fuzz that has nothing to do with the occult studies that have oversaturated the genre in recent years. R.I.P’s catchy, brawling dirges and thick 70s grooves reach back to the more authentic era of Washington DC/Hellhound Records forefathers Internal Void, Revelation and Iron Man, keeping a rock’n’roll and punk rock sneer and staying well away from the stoner rock and Sabbath clichés. In The Wind’s sonic stew of greasy distortion and driving clamour is helmed by vocalist Fuzz, whose trembling wail echoes eerily through the jams, preaching tales of a despairfilled life of death and fear. Reviving classic doom subject matter that is sadly all but lost today amidst juvenile themes of space, weed and wizards, this is a powerful debut and a much-needed lesson in real doom metal.