Packaged in a spartan brown sleeve that looks more like a leaflet for a 1950s carol service than an “apocalyptic devil rock” record, Morning Star Rise is the third LP for this impressive New Zealand trio, whose musical backgrounds in death, doom, trad and black metal are subtly woven into an accessible, polished rock framework.
The album kicks off with an upbeat surge on an opening triptych of short, pointed, driving tunes, faintly comparable to the rock’n’roll energy of Turbonegro crossed with stadium-goth shades of Paradise Lost circa Draconian Times and immersed in the occult elegance of The Devil’s Blood, plus a self-proclaimed debt to 90s Finnish death-rock cult Babylon Whores and kings of arch gloom Type O Negative.
Pete Steele’s seductive croak is most notably echoed in doom hymn Ashlands and stately nine-minute closer Dragon Of Revelations, but with a 10-year history and a range of musical bases confidently covered, their own identity emerges from the influences./o:p
