A fine example of epic doom of the Bathory school from Russia's premier purveyors of White Tiger: Scald. Slow riffs, with melodic leads and soloz and a ton of keyboards.
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After the Iron Curtain dropped these dudes didn't wast any time: formed in 1993 they cranked out a demo in 1994 and put out Will of the Gods is Great Power (originally Will of Gods is a Great Power) in 96 on MetalAgen. Slow, epic riffs drive onwards like longships towards a monastery, soloz and harmonies fly over it all like the diseased heads of mine enemies and leading it all is the one and only Maxim "Agyl" Adrianov. He displays a wide range of clean vocals, from low croons to high screams. Though the album make heavy use of keyboards, they never take the lead or get ridiculous.
The downside is this album has a terrible production; despite being reissued twice, nobody has really given then their sonic due. Cymbals often overdrive, guitars often sound blown out and Agyl often sounds like his mouth is full, especially on the lower registers. Despite the shoddy production Will of the Gods is Great Power succeeds on musical merit alone.
Unfortunately Agyl died in 1997 in a train accident, which isn't even that cool way to die, like a fucking tsunami or getting caught in a snowstorm and dying of hypothermia. His bandmates decided not to go on as Scald and formed Tumulus, which in my opinion is an inferior product.
One of the best five or so epic doom metal albums. Cheers, esteemed justice Shredd. Also check out the youtube clip of them playing this shit live.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. You seen "Master of Tundra"? Shame that couldn't have been done in the studio with some killer harmonies.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Scald would have had the same trajectory that Solstice had with a slow Bathory influenced first album with faster Manowar influenced later work. Shame on the Russian train system.