American doom quintet SubRosa is back with new album More Constant Than the Gods. Since I am a huge fan of their previous album No Help for the Mighty Ones, I was looking forward to this follow up album a lot. And I can tell you that it doesn’t disappoint at all. SubRosa released a spell-binding, magical album here taking you on a hypnotic doom trip over the course of 6 enormous tracks.
In the ever growing field of female-fronted doom metal bands, SubRosa stands above most of these with head and shoulders. Having three female band members who all take the vocal duties on board really makes a difference and the sheer beauty of the vocals in contrast with the slow heavy doom-laden guitar riffs really makes my spinal cord shiver at times. I don’t know when Rebecca Vernon, Sarah Pendleton and Kim Pack actually do the singing, but whoever creates these emotions in me did a fantastic job. The vocals 'The Usher’ remind me a lot of Scottish folk music, because of the near Scottish accent in the female voice on this track.
SubRosa’s music is heavy, it is doom, it is slowly paced, but the band also uses a lot of violin, which is not surprisingly with having two violin players in the band (Sarah and Kim). This is a great addition to the heavy sound and it makes the doom they create a big folk music influence. Throughout More Constant Than the Gods there is also the use of keyboards, piano and even the flute and especially this latter instrument gives is this spell-binding sound. ‘No Safe Harbor’ for example starts with a beautiful, though very dark, piano part followed by the introduction of the flute in this track, giving it an almost Midlake type feeling. In fact if Midlake would change to playing doom metal, SubRosa is probably what they would sound like.
If you are after your daily injection of heavy doom metal, if you love female enchanting vocals, if you like your doom a bit different, a bit more folk, a bit more hypnotic, then look no further. SubRosa’s More Constant Than the Gods ticks all these boxes and will give you the best doom trip you’ve had in a while.
