Apocalypse

I found this album in my collection and have no memory of where or how I obtained it, nor do I know anything about them. I was pleasantly surprised to find some solid mid-paced old school metal with heavy doom leanings. Nothing is too slow, which usually bores me about a lot of doom. There's a satisfying momentum to all the songs and enough variety in pacing and songwriting for each to stand out. As with most (all?) doom, there aren't any musical heroics or fancy riffs going on here but neither is anything too predictable.

This doom isn't depressive like Trouble or Candlemass or any of the other pillars of the genre. It's not an upbeat album by any means, but certainly has more pep in its stomp than most. I like how they add weird low budget sounding keyboards or bells or whatever accents to some songs, probably more by virtue of their Russian-ness and lack of access to Western musical accessories than any intentional inventiveness. Production is a bit thin by modern standards, but I like it -- especially that you can hear the bony, melodic bass lines, which do their own thing apart from the guitar and drums as much as not. There's pretty good separation in the mix of all instruments, in fact, which is a plus in my book.

The vocalist is also unusual. He doesn't sound like anyone I've heard. I still can't decide if he annoys me or not; he does have a bit of a whine sometimes, but it's unique, emotive, and foreign-sounding enough to keep my interest. That said, I probably won't listen to the album too often because I think he would definitely get on my nerves after a while. At first I couldn't tell if he was singing in Russian or just had a really awkward accent; I think it's the latter as I can make out maybe one or two English words every few dozen. I'm not big on lyrics so that's fine by me. His voice is odd enough to serve simply as another source of melody.

"Man of Fire" stands out as a favorite track, with a nice building intro of bass and drums. "Werewolves" is also a pretty satisfying riff march. Final tracks "Apocalypse" and "Decline of Zarathustra" both feature faster paced almost thrash rhythms for most of each song, which provides a satisfying lift at the end of the album.

Not a classic of the genre, but recommended.