No two tracks pull exactly the same trick or repeat ideas too blatantly, but things all feel of a piece. The six songs and 42-minute run time fly by largely because everything fits snuggly into just the right places. Case in point is “Siren,” with its easy, resonant guitar line and un-rushed tempo sounding like a lost Low track while integrating seamlessly into the larger album.Įven if Kingdom Cold was nothing but pure 70s worship, and a lot of it is, it wouldn’t matter, because a band that plays music that goes down this smooth can never go out of style. Before you start thinking this is all shag carpet and wood paneling in aural form, know that Oceanlord sound far from musty.
Metal guitar jam tracks full#
By the time final track “Come Home” rolls around, Oceanlord are firing on all psych cylinders, with floating warped guitars and a stank-face jam session full of echo and distortion to close things out. Other songs, like leadoff “Kingdom” and “Isle of the Dead” lean more heavily on a classic doom sound without losing the flavor of 70s psych rock. It would feel perfectly natural to swap out guitarist/vocalist Peter Willmott’s unfussy singing for Young’s reedy countertenor, making “2340” a personal standout. The latter is especially prominent in “2340,” with a slight twang and a big classic rock riff. There are plenty of layers to Kingdom Cold’s sound, but if I had to be pithy, I’d say this is a record that splits the difference between Black Sabbath and Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Apparently, we’ll have to continue to wait for a proper full-length from promising upstarts Potion, but in the meantime, I’m happy to report that the Wide Brown Land has given us Kingdom Cold, the impressive debut from Melbourne’s Oceanlord, a band inspired by the 70s, the briny deep and those Eldritch horrors that lurk beyond our knowing. That being said, there must be something in the (lack of) water Down Under, because I’ve seen recent flickers of hope for fans of quality stoner/psych coming out of Australia.
No matter how full of piss and vinegar a young band may be, if they play stoner doom, they fight the perceptions of a tired genre.
1 As the oldest of all metal forms, predictability is baked into its very DNA. For someone who holds all forms of doom metal in high esteem, I must admit I’ve struggled to connect with anything of the stoner/psych variety ever since Italy’s Ufomammut put their amp fuzz out to pasture a few years back.
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