Church Within Records started a project of releasing a series of split EPs, starting with “The Church Within Vol. 1: Vampire Bites”, which features Lord Of Solitude from New Zealand and Thronehammer from the UK and Germany. The entire series will be released on 10” vinyl in limited editions, so devoted doom collectors know what to do.

Lord Of Solitude is featured with two songs, “To The Devil A Daughter” and “Vampire Ritual”, clocking around 11 minutes together. What we get here, is some orthodox doom with a sinister edge that matches the general vampire concept well. The influence of Electric Wizard is obvious on both songs, yet Lord Of Solitude is not as convincing. Both songs are decent, but fail to truly impress and the growling towards the end of “To The Devil A Daughter” makes me uncomfortable in an undesirable way.

Thronehammer is doing a significantly better job with “Hammer, Stake and Cross”. In line with the atmosphere created by Lord Of Solitude, this track hammers away for almost 12 minutes without getting boring. Once again, Electric Wizard can’t be disregarded as an inspiration, but there is more traditional doom here as well. The guitars are nice and crunchy and while the overall sound quality lacks some balance and cohesion, Thronehammer hits the nail with solid songwriting. Looking forward to hearing more from this band and let’s see how the other splits in these series will turn out.

 (6.5/10 Lykle Thijssen)

https://www.facebook.com/LordOfSolitude

https://www.facebook.com/THRONEHAMMER

https://churchwithinrecords-cwr.bandcamp.com/album/vol-1-vampire-bites