BLOOD CEREMONY: LORD OF MISRULE (2016)
1) The Devil's Widow; 2)
Loreley; 3) The Rogue's Lot; 4) Lord Of Misrule; 5) Half Moon Street; 6) The
Weird Of Finistere; 7) Flower Phantoms; 8) Old Fires; 9) Things Present, Things
Past.
Ah, how delightful unabashed copycatting can
be. Say what you will, but when the first track on your new album opens with a
suspenseful guitar riff taken almost note-for-note from Pink Floyd's ʽLucifer
Samʼ (because Lucifer!!), and then,
eight (or nine) bars into the song, changes into a Black Sabbath-style rocker
with Iommi-tone, on top of which the frontlady piles up a Jethro Tull-style
lead flute melody with Anderson-fuss, it's hard to get rid of an ironic
chuckle: «Man, these guys just might be the
most original artists of 2016 — they're, like, the only ones to completely and
absolutely waive the right to any originality! Slavish imitation rules the
day!»
Add to this the fact that, as of now, Blood
Ceremony have already been going on for ten
years: that's right, time goes pretty fast now, right? Four albums in ten
years, all of which essentially sound the same and that «same» is 100%
derivative of a bunch of heavy rock / prog rock artists who now probably come
to relax and revisit their youth at Blood Ceremony concerts. (At least Anderson
and Iommi, I believe, should get a lifelong supply of free tickets to BC
shows). I think their rhythm section has changed again for this album (too lazy
to check out properly), but the main people stay the same (Alia on keyboards,
flutes, and apprentice-demonic vocals; Sean on Iommi-guitar, although, unlike
Iommi, he never downtunes it properly enough), and overall, the band just wants
to tell you that dark magic is a full-time occupation, with its own routine,
schedules, and stability rates. It doesn't pay too much, but hey, it's a job
like any other.
And it would still be fun, if only, after the
first few tracks, one didn't get the feeling that they are treating it like routine. Again, everything follows the same
formula — heavy guitar riffage, derivative of Sabbath and their ilk, but never
as memorable; witchy woman vocals from Alia, strong and spiteful, but never
truly scary or disturbing; and flute or keyboard solos that always sound
tasteful, but never too different from each other. Sometimes the music veers
far into the field of Celtic balladry (ʽHalf Moon Streetʼ begins like a
metallized version of Fairport Convention's ʽMatty Grovesʼ; ʽThe Weird Of
Finistereʼ is a slow, mournful waltz with, for once, a more pastoral sound to
the flute), and ʽFlower Phantomsʼ is an unexpectedly short and upbeat psychedelic-melancholic
pop song in the vein of British nugget-bands circa 1968-1969, but even these
exceptions have the same arrangement style and the same overall mood.
Generally, I still think that the heaviest
rocking songs here have 90% of the fun — the already mentioned ʽDevil's Widowʼ,
with its tribute to ʽLucifer Samʼ, takes the cake (fast tempo rules, and
there's something delightfully corny in the way Alia screams "THE DEVIL'S
WIDOW! THE DEVIL'S WIDOW!", as if she just saw her walking down the street
or something), but the slow, ponderous ʽRogue's Lotʼ, where the lady gets to
ask us the question "how do the living raise the dead?" in such a
sinister tone you'd think she was going to demonstrate it here and now, is also
cool (at least, until it picks up speed and becomes a more forgettable piece of
Crowley boogie); and I am also partial to the «dance-metal» pattern of ʽOld
Firesʼ and its overdubbed guitars with «woman tones» melodically duelling in
the instrumental section. The title track (referring to the legendary title of
the presider over the medieval Feast Of Fools) is probably supposed to be the
album's centerpiece, what with its epic, power chord-based opening and all, but
does not really come across as a standout — however, it does have a
well-thought out main riff as well.
All said, Lord
Of Misrule does find me a little tired of giving out thumbs up as if, you
know, it were automatically
guaranteed that Blood Ceremony's schtick, as long as it is properly executed,
is always a good thing to have in unlimited quantities. Namely, Lord Of Misrule has fewer moments of
true excitement than The Eldritch Dark
— actually, come to think of it, none at all in comparison — and if it takes
them three years to come up with a weaker
application of the same formula, why should I be recommending this? If you're
new to the witchy world of Alia O'Brien, check out their early stuff; if you
already know what they are all about, your time and spiritual energy should
probably rather be spent on something else — unless, of course, you need fresh
music like this to create the proper vibe for casting incantations over your
personal stock of mandrake roots, toadstool powders, and black cat bones.
I think Blood Ceremony have got better with each record. Losing much of the slow doom and moving more towards a classic 70s heavy rock sound which has always been a favourite of mine especially if there is flute!
ReplyDeleteBut am a sucker for modern bands playing 70s style heavy rock,proto metal and any other music label along those lines.