Saturday 20 February 2016

WORSHIP OF KERES ~ BLOODHOUNDS FOR OBLIVION ........EP review

One of the things I really admire about the "underground"  music scene is the camaraderie between the musicians who inhabit it, often you will read, via a bands social media pages, posts extolling the virtues of other bands and giving both support and encouragement. This interaction between musicians also lends itself to some very interesting collaborations, members of different bands recording together in one off or sometimes longer projects, as is the case with "Bloodhounds For Oblivion" the debut EP from Worship Of Keres.

Elise Tarens - vocals (White Fuzzy Bloodbath, Refract), Matthew Woods Wilhoit - guitar (ex Bog Oak), Robert Lander - bass and Trevor William Church - drums (Beastmaker) are four musicians from various musical backgrounds who under the umbrella of Worship Of Keres have produced an EP of some of the finest doom your liable to hear this year,

"Bloodhounds For Oblivion" is an EP made up of three songs presented as a trilogy of books and like any trilogy the best place to start is at the beginning.
"Book 1" opens it's pages with Church counting in the riff with crashing cymbals and pounding drum beats, the riff when it arrives is fuzz drenched and relentless, dark, evil and never deviating from its purpose and that purpose is to create a dark downtuned atmospheric backdrop for the voice of Elise Tarens. Tarens vocal is a sublime mix of ethereal and angelic and floats over and around the distorted darkness created by Woods Wilhoit and Landers like a white dove over a storm cloud, hauntingly fragile and delicately powerful.
The songs slightly gothic doom groove is the most prevalent here but there are elements of the darker end of the genres spectrum that will surely to appeal to those that like their doom a little on the black side
"Book 2" goes straight for the throat with a delicious distorted circular riff that again is repeated over the songs length. It is a trick that could get a little tedious if it were not for the subtle shifts in dynamic and intensity that keep things interesting, that and the utter ghostly beauty that Tarens brings to the table with her swooping ,swirling vocal delivery.
"Book 3" mixes things up a little with Tarens getting a little down and dirty, her vocal  in the verse taking on a slightly grittier darker tone here and there. Landers and Church lay down a barrage of rhythm that Woods Wilhoit then paints with swathes of distortion and fuzz soaked riffage. Things take a left turn at just over the three minute mark when the dynamic shifts towards a slightly stoner metal groove withWoods Wilhoit laying down a glorious solo that has more than a hint of The Cult's Billy Duffy in its sonic attack, then it's back to the doom for the final quarter.

According to the bands Facebook page there are already plans afoot to record a further EP so watch this space because the doom is strong in these guys!

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