Whilst I may now be in my 45th year on this planet, and sometimes look back with fondness on the days of vinyl, tape exchanges, and badly printed fanzines on a few pages of photocopied A4 paper, the modern age of the First World is one of wonder. Without the internet you are currently accessing I would never have heard of the band Albez Duz, nor learnt from a bit of research that the name of this German two piece means something like “Swan Noise” in a now dead language. Whilst the latter is an interesting factoid that might get you points on QI, the band is one that is very unlikely to appear on BBC1 and get mass media exposure, unless of course the prefabricated shite pseudo R’n’B is replaced in popular culture by occult doom rock; not very likely, eh?
‘The Coming of Mictlan’ starts off with ‘Heaven’s Blind’ a trippy combination of swirling sound effects and the sort of Celtic drumming that accompanied ancient tribes as they marched to battle the invading Romans, the band’s chant matching the spells of blood drenched druids. When the album proper starts with ‘Fire Wings’ the dirge continues, two minutes of down tuned guitars intertwined with ethereal Hammond organ swirls before the darkly gothic and overtly Satanic vocals start, delivered in the dark baritone tones of a latter day Andrew Eldritch. With the first half of the title track ‘The Coming of Mictlan’ the band steps even further back in time, the howling effects, staggeringly slow delivery and stabbing chords of the Hammond evoking the likes of Iron Butterfly and Vanilla Fudge, until halfway through the eight minute number the guitars step up a gear into Steppenwolf mode with some heavy rock riffing, the whole delivering a suitably magical and mythical style for a song dedicated to the Aztec equivalent of the Norse Valhalla.
This same theme of South American legend continues with ‘Feathered Snake’, a reference to the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, delivered in a doom laden early Candlemass style, the drum and bass trudging slowly across the theatrical musical landscape like the steps of sacrificial victims going to their death at the ancient deity’s altar, a theatricality enhanced by the long meandering guitar solo and choral effects that follow. Throughout the album the band manage to mix a collection of styles, ‘Drowned’ opening with an acoustic guitar riff that seems to have jumped straight from Pink Floyd’s classic ‘Wish You Were Here’; for the true metal warriors out there, that is not an insult, and that band’s influence can be heard in the layering of instruments to create a song that allows the listener to drift away into gentle reverie rather than leap elbows flailing into the nearest mosh pit.
After an album that manages to combine so many styles with aplomb it is with the final track that the band manages to lose a point from me and shoot itself in the foot with a cover of Tanita Tikaram’s ‘Twist in my Sobriety’. I’m sure many people reading this will not remember the 1988 original, but I do and fondly as well, so Albez Duz’s version just comes across as a leaden Goth-Rawk rehashing of a song that did not need “re-imagining”, as the modern phraseology has it. It may well play better to those who have not heard the original and want to get their Goth on, but to me it jars with the original song writing displayed before. But hey, what do I know; maybe there’s a market for reworked eighties folk rock, and Marilyn Manson is even now scrabbling through Suzanne Vega’s back catalogue for inspiration?
(7.5/10 Spenny)
09/09/2014 at 8:49 pm
Can’t agree about the cover, just played both versions back to back and they do it justice and put so much mood and atmosphere into it that it works so well. Love it!
04/10/2014 at 8:24 am
Each to their own dude, each to their own.