On Wings of Lucifer - Demo

Look, I get it, this is their first release and maybe they didn't have the money to do a proper recording. This features all but two relatively sloppy live tracks. This doesn't really give us a lot to go on. It's wholly possible that the band would be vastly superior in a studio situation. However, not much can be done to help the vocalist, perhaps instrumentally this would be a lot more tight and precise. I guess we'll just have to wait for the next release to come out. This German doom band certainty isn't incompetent at what they do. They're heavy and they go for a classic sound. Besides the extremely nasally vocal performance, there really isn't that much to call overtly bad. This is definitely a rough recording that isn't fully realized, but some potential is surely there for the instrumentalists.

The band plays a pretty straightforward style of doom. Lots of nods to Sabbath, occasional hints at more epic territory - they include much from the realm of more traditional doom. The live sound is a bit muddy, and not in the good sort of way that makes it heavier. It all comes off as rather sloppy, although we should go easy on them seeing that this is their first recording and it is pulled from a live performance. The tone on the drums isn't all that good, and the drum work itself is rather basic. The croaky bass is highly audible, being prominent throughout. On occasion it seems to miss a note.

Now on to the vocals - they're horrible! The dude sounds like Ozzy after a blow to a particularly sensitive part of his body, if you catch my drift. The bad recording can be looked past as this band is still in its infancy, but the vocals just ruins any chance they had. If a new vocalist is found the band could conceivably blossom into something worth coming back to. Even with everything else vastly improved the same vocals would ruin it. It's grating and it puts a damper on an already not so great recording. Another complaint is that on "Omnissiah" the riff sounds kind of reminiscent to "Iron Man". Now the occasional riff sounding like one Iommi already laid down is hardly a bad thing, and if a doom band is going to have a riff that sounds like a previously recorded one, Sabbath is the go-to band, but "Iron Man"? Fucking seriously? The only riff in existence that is more obvious is the one to "Smoke on the Water". My final complaint is that the songs have a much longer running time than they warrant, tending to overstay their welcome.

If not for the vocalist, I could say that although this is a very rough recording, the band does show some glimmers of potential. Unfortunately they just cannot grow into a viable entity with these nasally abominations. It's just not going to happen. This release does have it's fair share of problems. The songs do tend to drag on. This demo isn't worth a second listen at all. Instrumentally, they have the traditional doom sound down, albeit in a sloppy form, but as a whole this just kind of blows.