Last year (2019) we reviewed a release called "Under The Human State" by an Indonesian band going by the name Shankar, we described the album as one of the best albums, of that year, released outside of the usual stamping grounds of The America's and Europe. This year (2020) that award/honour could well be bestowed on yet another release from an Indonesian collective, an album entitled "....An End to Ill Omens" (The Swamp Records) by a Yogyakarta based combo going by the name of Deathgang.
Deathgang's musical attack sits primarily within the canon of stoner doom, a genre known for its thick glutinous downtuned guitar refrains and pounding slightly pedestrian percussion, and Deathgang's debut does not disappoint on either score, the band delivering, via four tracks, all you would come to expect from music pitched at the stoner end of the doom spectrum. So why, you may ask, is Desert Psychlist touting this as "a must check out" release when there are so many other albums of a similar dynamic out there that you could be listening to? The answer to that is the vocals, Deathgang's songs are decorated in vocals that can only be described as "unique", imagine, if you can, your deceased drunken uncle emerging from his grave still drunk, a bottle in one hand a bong in the other and singing through a mouth still half filled with the soil he was buried in and you might, just might, get an idea of why we are calling these vocals "unique"! It is these vocals, telling of electric children and black suns rising ("Canathoid"), witches and dopelords ("Dope Tales from Salem") and immortal wine ("Dionyfuzz") backed by some seriously impressive swirling dank doomic grooves, that takes "....An End To Ill Omens" out of the realms of just being seen as some run of the mill stoner doom release from a new band into being a serious contender for essential stoner doom listen of the year.
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