Thanks to the availability of (fairly) affordable home recording software one person projects have become more and more of a "thing" over the last few years, some of these projects have in the past tended to be a bit rough and raw but as the software becomes more advanced and readily available so the quality of these recordings has become almost indistinguishable from those albums recorded in an all bells and whistles professional studio.. The EP we are bringing to your attention today, "Dungeons of Doom", is one such one man project, the man in question hiding his identity beneath the pseudonym Spectral Sorcery, the EP a doom drenched three song affair swathed in grainy fuzz and sporting darkly melodic clean vocals.
There are only three songs populating Spectral Sorcery's debut EP but but they are three songs any discerning fan of psych drenched doom would not want to be without. The first "The Tomb of the Demilich", a slice of dreamy lo-fi psychedelic doom, is sublime in all its departments and boasts strong clean vocal melodies bolstered by searing lead guitar, however what really captivates here is the songs low end droning fuzziness which when combined with those guitar textures gives the song an almost orchestral feel. Spectral Sorcery (for that is how we will refer to this talented multi-instrumentalist) mixes his dooms for next track "Return to the Barrow Downs" blending a little proto-doom swagger with traditional doom atmospherics and then sprinkling the result with touch of dark heavy psych over which he tells a tale of spectral voices and a wights refrain in strong dark melodic tones, its powerful stuff! Final song "Dungeons of Doom" sees Spectral Sorcery changing things up vocally by double tracking his vocals to give them an almost Gregorian cadence which in turn gives the song a feeling of dark spirituality, a spirituality further enhanced by its thundering slow rhythms and that spiralling droning fuzziness we spoke of earlier.
If there is one criticism to be levelled at Spectral Sorcery's "Dungeons of Doom" it is that at only three songs it is far too short and tends to leave the listener feeling somewhat a little robbed, but then the fact that its brevity does foster this feeling also tells you just how damn good this EP is. Let us just hope that Spectral Sorcery reads this and immediately locks himself in his home studio/dungeon and does not come out again until he has recorded a full album packed with tunes as good and as powerful as these three.
Check him out ....
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