There are just some bands that you know transcend norms. It turns out to be twelve long years since the Swedish Doomsters produced their last album, “Mammon’s War”. What’s more worrying is that I reviewed that piece of work and it didn’t seem that long ago! Count Raven are a classic and class act, and I am old. Those are the headlines.
Joking aside, it’s always a treat to get a slab of new Count Raven. They’re very much one of those bands who always deliver the goods. I got into them a long, long time ago now (I picked up “High on Infinity” on a copied tape back in the nineties – don’t tell anyone), and round about the same time as I started getting into other acts erm…inspired by Classic Black Sabbath, such as the much missed and under-appreciated Sheavy. Of course, the basic blue(s)print of Count Raven remains the same. The Iommi-esque riffs, the leaden tempo, the Sabbathian rhythm section. Then the vocals: oh, the vocals! Dan Fondelius has always sounded – shall we say – “inspired” by Ozzy Osbourne? I will say that here he really does sound like the latter-day efforts of the Ozzman, even with the multi-tracked vocals, the keyboards and the song structures, although thankfully with the quality of the songwriting being about 9000% better than anything the brummy banger has put out in the last generation.
From the opening strains of the bouncing, nine-minute opener “Blood Pope”, with a main riff so infectious it could cause a fresh round of lockdowns, through to the weepy piano and vocals ender, “Goodbye”, this is a fantastic album, and a contender for my new favourite Count Raven record. It has some much harder hitting material than we’re used to from the Swedish doomers – take the punishing pummel of “The Giver and The Taker”, for instance, or the rumbling dread of “The Ending”. In fact, it’s a much darker album than we are used to hearing from these lads. Really, they’ve nothing left to prove, being a cult act that’s admired by the scene for so long. They were, after all, one of the few acts included on the seminal 1991 doom metal compilation CD, “Dark Passages Vol. 1” that really kick-started the modern wave of doom. Since that point, albeit fitfully, they’ve gone on to be a source of constant quality.
Complaints? Few, really. I could, personally, have done without “Goodbye”. I don’t like the weepy lighter-in-the-air ballad shizzle that the double O produces, and I don’t feel the need for it here either to be honest. While I love the darker material, I do think that they could have doubled down on the heaviness a little more. Essentially, I want more of the none-more-Sabbath riffing of “The Ending”. The production is a little more restrained than “Mammon’s War”. That’s a good thing, as the whole product sounds much more analogue and warm. These are but trifling matters though when you consider the whole package – triple A doom produced by a true triple A doom band. New pretenders step aside – the daddy is back.
(9/10 Chris Davison)
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