What the hell is going on in Finland? I’m guessing it has a small population (which I can’t be bothered to look up) but a good chunk of the bands I write about for this site seem to come from there. I’m guessing it’s a similar size to my home country Wales but you don’t see armies of underground metal and stoner bands being flung out from there, though that would be fucking awesome.
Anyway, here’s another bunch of Finnish dreadlocked weed obsessed chaps called Domovoyd with their debut album Oh Sensibility which I guess is supposed to be ironic because throughout this doom blast you spend most of the time having absolutely no idea what’s going on.
It really gets cracking on the second track ‘Incarnation’ which blasts out an industrial strength doom riff which improves planet earth dramatically. Sounds like a mix between Monster Magnet in their Dopes to Infinity days and Electric Wizard throughout their entire career. At this point I would like to quickly take care of the stoned elephant in the room, the whole album sounds like Electric Wizard… a lot. However, I don’t think it’s entirely a bad thing, shit loads of bands try to sound like Electric Wizard but do it appallingly so at least these guys do it with a bit of style. Not only that, they sound like a trippier, fuzzed out, loop pedal heavy version of Electric Wizard and doesn’t that just sound awesome to you? Think Electric Wizard trying to do a kraut album and you will be more or less there.
The vocals are fuzzed out and incomprehensible, just as they should be and the production is top notch… and you can find all kinds of unique flashes of brilliance woven into a rather heavy mess. The riff on ‘By Taking Breath’ is amazing, seriously amazing and you will struggle to find any doom bands nailing something better than that. The track length is anywhere between 5 - 17 minutes and the final track ‘Argenteum Astrum’ proves they are really not afraid to just go off on some colossal psychedelic jam which can compete with the best of them. There is not too much originality going on here, just some good nod inducing doom. Do it!
