The Brooklyn based instrumental doomsters released this album last month. I'll be the first to admit instrumental music is not really my thing, so you really have to impress me in order to pull it out. They start off with powerful if no run of the mill doom riffs which they layer with guitar melodies that sit where vocals might be. Into the second song the challenge for the band is to break our rule cool riffs alone do not make a good song, when that is their stock and trade. "Beast From the Sea" feels like it has more punch and they make use of some more exotic scales. Riff wise there more of a Celtic Frost grit to "Out of the Abyss" . It breaks into a chug that would be more impressive with vocals over it rather than doing the job of making me forget their should be vocals here , which is the duty of any instrumental band. It instead comes across like really long intros.
When it comes to being a riff machine these guys do have some good ones. They are not limited to rumbling around either. When the bass emerges from out of the abyss, its tone is not really living up to where the guitar is at. They pound ahead with the bull dozing "Dark Army" . They close out the album with another pounding barrage of stoner heaviness.I think this album comes closer to being stoner metal than doom as it doesn't have the mournful introspection of doom and is balls to the wall after a few bong rips i'm sure. I will give this one a six. If you like instrumental stoner metal then go ahead and round it up to a 7, but it's nothing we haven't heard before , but it is by and large well done.
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