The Freezing Fog at Myspace

One would not expect that a traditional heavy metal album would come from the same plectrums of the same people who gave you Converge-approved metalcore heroes Beecher, despite the fact that Beecher themselves were originally conceived as a doom metal band, but rest assured if you absolutely hate metalcore (if you don’t then check out Beecher’s “This Elegy, His Autopsy”) you’ll probably be interested to check this out. Apart from the mark of mid-period Cathedral, there’s not a single influence that’s later than 1976. The riffs of Sabbath, the twin guitar attacks of Thin Lizzy, the stomp of Budgie, the genius of Deep Purple, the muddy power of Blue Cheer, the progressive bent of Hawkwind yadda yadda yadda. Basically this is the sound of heavy metal before Judas Priest and Motorhead got their hands on it, revisited through a stoner prism.

The lead guitar work by one “Charles Edward Godby” (like Beecher they insist on using their middle names in the time honoured serial killer fashion) shows an immense sense of power and rhythm, as vast riffage collides with soulful and psychedelic leads. The songs are expertly structured with many different variations on 70’s heavy metal ebbing and flowing in a natural and delightful fashion with the spacey Jimmy Page meets Kyuss solos being an obvious highlight. David William Hopkinson’s soaring masculine yet distinctly Lancastrian vocals bring a passionate and forceful resonance to the music, somewhere between a lower pitched version of Budgie’s Burke Shelley and a hell of a lot more tuneful Lee Dorrian!

This is the perfect album for chilling out, drinking a few beers and smoking the odd joint (a subject visited by the band themselves in their stoner hobbit epic “No Light, No Smoke”) to on a summer’s day. If this band had been around in 1974 they would have been legends, as it is in 2008 it’s a godamn awesome piece of trad metal heavier than fiat punto full of hambeasts, with not a growl, scream, or a trace of punk rock in sight. Although released in the United Kingdom by Roadkill records late last year, this record is being re-released worldwide in August this year by Dental records with 2 bonus tracks, so I would take some marks off for some Roadrunner-esque tactics there, but it’s hard to stay mad at these stoners for long with such quality guitar work on display.

Saturday, June 28th, 2008 @ 1:50 pm Doom Metal
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