Epic Doom, what is it good for? Absolutely everything, of course. I do love me a nice slab of epic doom, being a huge fan of Candlemass, Solitude Aeturnus, Solstice…the list goes on. So, when Doomocracy were advertised as being a modern band in the style of these illustrious forebears, well what could I do? I had to get hold of this to review. Doomocracy hail from Crete, and to be fair I had heard one of their tracks before, when a Greek mate of mine sent me a copy of the Greek Metal Hammer Tribute to Candlemass compilation (Doomocracy did a pretty good job of covering “Demon’s Gate” on that, fact-fans). Could they live up to the hype?
Well, it’s fair to say that the Crete-based lads do wear their influences on their sleeves. Half way through first proper track, “Eternally Lost”, I found myself thinking, “this sounds a lot like Solitude Aeturnus”. That isn’t a bad thing, at least to my ears. Throughout the run time of the album, there are some really cool east Mediterranean and Arabian sounding melodies, which are perfectly offset by the vocal lines of singer Michael Stavrakis. It’s fair to single out his voice, because not only is it very impressive in terms of its expansive range, but it has a quite unique, relatively high register that works in excellent contrast to some of the gritty riffing on display here. There’s also some symphonic elements at play, as with the choral voices at the beginning of the ominous “Prelude to the Apocalypse”.
Rumbling and sinister, the shadowy guitar work on “The Spiritualist” adds a nice theatrical King Diamond-esque vibe to the doom, along with the synth flourishes that are sparingly but effectively added to produce atmosphere. The title track, “Unorthodox” is, perhaps a little ironically, not that unorthodox, sounding as it does like a very strong album cut from Solitude Aeturnus, but frankly I can really forgive that given that they split up more than a decade ago! The band even manage to score a guest appearance from the legendary Mike Wead on the more epic-than-epic eight minute closer, “Catharsis”. That endorsement hasn’t happened by accident; Doomocracy are really very accomplished, musically. There are a couple of short instrumental tracks to add flavour – the introduction and at the half way point. There’s also a spoken word minute or so section a few tracks in. That essentially means of the eleven tracks on the album, you’re getting eight proper tracks, although they tend to be long in themselves. I personally didn’t feel that they really added a huge amount to the running of the album, and I listened to it front to back at least half a dozen times. It could be that they were supposed to add a sense of cohesion to the whole thing, but frankly, I found myself skipping them in irritation. A minor complaint, but one which I wonder will affect other listeners.
A good, solid slab of epic doom, then. While it won’t be a late addition to my album of the year’s list, it is a very good album, and hovers just outside of that list. If you’re into all things slow well-wrought and epic, this is a record for you.
(8/10 Chris Davison)
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