Sunday, March 3, 2013

... LORD OF THE GRAVE "green vapour"

I was a bit surprised not to see more feedback about LORD OF THE GRAVE's 2nd album "Green Vapour" over the past months; just a few reviews for an album released by Church Within rds almost 4 months ago was something pretty surprising, but after having listened it carefully I'm now thinking that it's not so much (surprising) in the end...

Like for wine, there's years that are more fruitful than others, and after an exceptionnal year in 2011 with the awesome trio Orchid/Lord Vicar/Sigiriya, it looks like 2012 was definitely not the best vintage for the label... but everything's relative you know, like a Medoc or Lalande Pommerol, it's hard to imagine any nectar produced by the german label totally untasty and indigestible !

"Green Vapour" is a title that easily speaks for itself, LORD OF THE GRAVE is a (switz) band that is deeply dedicated to the stoned Sludge type of riffage, hazy , frequently southern tinged and at times slightly psychedelic. They can easily suit to people into Weedeater, Eye Hate God, Saint Vitus and The Melvins but with the condition to not be looking for a new successor to those legendary references, nor THE new potential challenger with long teeth !!!

"Raping Zombies", "Green Vapour" or "Moutain Rites" are particularly all good songs with fuzzy and heavy as fuck riffs , rumbling bass that often drives the music and vocals not as raspy as what the genre brings usually but still enough gritty and stoned to crush your smoky brain. The music builds a nice overall atmosphere through hypnotic repetition and emphasized slowness.

After the  first listening I thought I was too stoned when having the impression to listen always the same song with the same tempo and tonality, plus that omnipresent and almost exclusive (green) colour. In the end it seems to be the real defect of this album : all songs are good individually but the album lacks of variation and unexpected, making it too long and a bit too generic...

As you understood, while not bad at all, this new album by Lord Of The Grave is significantly under the average of what the Doom Dealer usually brought to our shredded ears in the years 2010 but is still  slightly above the average from what the scene brings everyday from everywhere !!!




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