Selections from the Archive - Volume 02

Selections from the Archive - Volume 02

This week the selections I have are some top notch doom metal records. Not a lot of genre blending going on here, these bands dig deep into the traditions of doom and present something that celebrates those traditions and works with them in their own ways. I enjoy all of these records quite a bit, they make for a heavy night of listening.

Green Druid - Ashen Blood

This is some fuzzed out, riff-tastic, slow tempo doom metal. Coming to us from Colorado, Green Druid wear their herbal influence on their sleeve and make some fine heavy music. The songs are long and meandering, in a good way, like a long journey through saturated guitar grooves, with a heavy inspiration from some more psychedelic streams of thought, fancy that.The high pitched vocals act as a counterpoint to the heavy riffage, and are occasionally countered themselves by some raspy, black metal sounding shrieks worked in here and there.



 Elder - Reflections of a Floating World

Elder's newest record is a well known and very well received doom metal offering. Another album of long songs, these tunes are less soaked in fuzzy distortion but take the listener on no less of a sonic sojourn through intricate guitar passages and complex rhythmic patterns. Elder have been doing the doom thing for some time now, so it comes as no surprise that this is an inventive and rewarding listen, taking everything doom metal is and enlivening it with some refreshing ideas.



Pallbearer - Sorrow and Extinction

The only record in today's selection that is not the band in questions most recent release. This is instead Pallbearer's debut album from a number of years back. Much like Elder they bring some fresh ideas to the table and weave them into the traditional doom fabric to get something that would please the staunchest of genre purists while sounding modern and invigorating.  There are certainly heavy doom bands around than Pallbearer, but they write some good songs and rock pretty hard.

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