Finally, after two years worth of waiting, I hold in my hands the most anticipated release from the Southern Ontario stoner/doom scene. Georgian Skull has gone through a name change and a whole new rhythm section in the time it took to put this record out, but Mother Armageddon of the Healing Apocalypse has finally arrived, and it doesn’t disappoint!
Final Days of Doom, the band’s live opener, gets the full studio treatment to kick this one off. Killer atmospheric vibe with the reverb in the vocals during the intro, and are those church bells I hear? It’s like they’ve added a new layer of doom to their instrumental intro...
Demon Crippler comes next, the track listing unfolding like a Georgian Skull set list. That being said, there are layers on the studio recording that can’t be re-created in a live atmosphere. You can really hear why they took so long to get things right, and their persistence has paid off in spades. It almost seems like the verses have been sped up a bit, or maybe it’s just the extra think sludge on the guitars that makes them sound like a rumbling tank. Either way, it produces a powerful effect.
An evil laugh opens Hearts Burning (no longer in the realm of time), as many of the song titles have been shortened to form a column shaped like a chess piece on the back cover, making for a cool visual effect. Al Bones’ vocals have been double-tracked on this song, and he sounds like pure evil! The guitar solo just swoops in outta nowhere and knocks you the fuck out… Gawddamn!
Becoming Machines is the band’s thrasher, the fastest song in their arsenal. It sounds like a muddy evil swamp thing from the bottom of a dark lake, with double-tracked vocal growls and puking. Fuckin’ ridiculous!
The Funeral is next, and it starts off in death metal territory, switches into southern doom, and back again. I’m not sure that I’ve heard this one before. Another haunting church bell intro followed by frantic riffing and a heavy bottom end. Some riffs sound like old school Mister Bones, but others are a whole different animal. A crazily complex number, this Funeral…
Intermission. Eerily haunting horror show sounds and some abstract guitar noodling. How appropriate. But it doesn’t end there. Sounds like this is meant to be Georgian Skull’s answer to Planet Caravan with the airy atmospheric vocals and guitar tone. Song drags on too long when we get into spoken word territory, though. There might be an interesting story here if the words could be easily understood, but this is five minutes and 40 seconds(!) that the album could do without.
Just as I’m asking out loud if this Intermission could be any longer, I’m answered by the familiar strains of Hunting the Ghost, now with 100 per cent more wah. Still, this is one of the Skull’s best songs, so you can throw a talkbox solo in there, and it still rocks! One of the best breakdowns in doom metal hits you right at the four minute mark and again at 5:30 or so, and that’s when you go, “Now that’s what I sat through this six-minute Intermission for!”
Possessed Obsessed is up next, another classic cut. It starts off slow with a laid-back bluesy vibe, Al Bones spewing filth and hatred all the while. Two distinct guitar tones mark this song. One is very clean, the other dirty and distorted. It’s the former that plays the leads and cuts through the mix like a razorblade on glass.
What follows are two new songs to me. Doom Lord Pusher starts off as one would expect, before a fast-paced drumbeat comes in underneath the slow doom-metal guitar, and the song marches on to an unusual beat. But it’s got a buncha doom metal breakdowns thrown in to live up to its title. Pretty decent, but it ain’t no Smoking Your Exorcism…
Where the Demons Dwell starts off as a slow, stripped-down (by this album’s standards) tune with Al abandoning the growls and Steve laying off the fuzz. Is this a fucking ballad!? Indeed it is. As you may know, I’m not a fan of ballads, so I’m just glad that it’s short.
And that brings us to the grand finale. The Southern Ontario stoner/doom scene is somewhat devoid of anthems, what with Diablo Red letting Rise of the Fallen fall by the wayside much like The Womb has rejected Old and Dirty Love. But one thing you can count on from a Georgian Skull live performance is that they’ll close out their set with Smoking Your Exorcism. Thank Satan, Jahweh, or whatever deity you pray to for that. And they know better than to mess with a good thing, as the echo-chamber vocals are the only difference between this and the fourth track from the Mister Bones sampler.
Alas, after listening to said sampler for almost two years now, it’ll take some getting used to the slickly-produced songs on this record, but strip away all the studio magic, and what you’ve got is an album full of downtuned heavy riffage, the kind that keeps the blood pumping through my veins. With the year almost over, I know that this record will be fighting Blood Ceremony’s self titled for my top spot in 2008. Lemme tell ya, it’s gonna be a fight to the death!
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