In here there are quite a few who are fascinated by the world sword & sorcery. Maybe you don’t even need to be obsessed with the real Middle Ages, because in fact it’s even a bit limiting. They might tell you that it was anything but a dark era, mild in terms of climate, there were wars and famines, for goodness sake, but less than what the Enlightenment people wanted us to believe. In short, then you end up rationalizing too much and maybe you realize that those beautiful castles that enrich the landscapes of Europe are often posthumous, romantic reconstructions. At this point, the Americans who don’t care about philology and favor fantasy are right when it comes to broadswords, chain mail, warriors and damsels. You’ve all read Conan, so you’ll know what I’m talking about. So good. Music: then all in all we don’t mind that certain doom, heavy and stoner fringes aren’t exactly accompanied by the pictorial and literary magniloquence of past centuries, but are instead more cartoonish. Some plastic you want me to do.
So here they are back HEAVY TEMPLEa heavy and psychedelic (well, almost stoner) doom trio from Philadelphia, led by singer and bassist Elyse Mitchell (alias High Priestess Nighthawk), now also involved in Morgul Blade in which drummer Will Mellor (alias Baron Lycan). The Morgul Blades, by the way, are also about to show up again soon, speaking of heavy fantasy. Staying with Heavy Temple, the debut had slipped out of my hands Amoris Wolves in 2021 (I had just arrived in Metal Skunk), but I liked it overall, with its heavy stoner and the cover illustration remained in my mind: a naked and tattooed woman, skull-headed, riding an angry wolf among the mushrooms .
That of the new Garden of Heathens sees a werewolf and two strange horned men emerge from a cave as they survey the macabre ruins of a fantastical civilization. But our tone is playful and rock’n’roll. Long live America. In reality, if you want heavy psych and daredevil riffs, Heavy Temple should please you. Electric music, horror and fantasy just the right thing. Snake Oil (and other remedies) it has one, riff, that tests the vertebrae, for sure. However, in fact, the tone is more that of the rocky stoner than the heavy epic. Here, more High on Fire that NWOTHM, for sure. At times (Divine Indiscretion), they are not very far away QOTSA (not that one What namesake that is currently circulating). Strong and turgid disc. I’m not crazy about it because in my opinion the absurd song or the piece that really makes you go crazy is missing. The patch is there, it’s always there, for the entire duration. And then I like them, them and their Ikea kitchen-sized double-headed axes. I’m counting more on the next album to see if they become something really cool or Alone one of those very solid American stoner bands that if I lived overseas I would rush to see live to fit right in with the crowd. Alone, in short.
Long live America and long live New York. Only there could a total short circuit like i CASTLE RAT. Who even before the release of their debut album had already scored a million (!!!) plays on Spotify for a handful of singles. Feed the Dream it alone makes seven hundred thousand. And it’s a more or less pristine piece of doom from an underground band. It’s clear that Brooklyn’s underground has a firepower that Uppsala, Leipzig or Gallarate don’t have. But it won’t be just this. Short circuit, I was saying. Because the Castle Rats, a kind of Black Sabbath led by a warrior princess who came out of a drawing by Frank Frazetta, are a creature of Riley Pinkerton, pin-up, or rather influencers, indeed rather scantily clad and with a recent past as a folk singer-songwriter (complete with a ’60s quiff at the time) and an even more recent infatuation with doom riffles, broadswords and metal mesh bikinis that cover and don’t cover. The other band members have masks and characters that look like the Death SS. So we have nothing to complain about, obviously. Even if all eyes, willingly or not, are all on Pinkerton (the possible relationship with the founder of the well-known detective agency is unknown), or The Rat Queen.
Saying that I had left prevented this Into the Realm It’s an understatement, but the attractiveness of their proposal isn’t entirely based on the warrior princess’s rude performances. Now, even if the metal world pretends not, it is quite sensitive to the merchandise. Yet, quite elitist to despise the fake metal. There is. And there is also the suspicion that it is a entertainment of some hipster which will soon pass to other. But all my reservations are fading with the listening. And I tell you that, despite all the sexy and plasticky accoutrements of the operation, the record spins well and it tastes old Truly. And dramatic. In short, without the staging, had he presented himself with an obscure graphic cover, not with the graces of Pinkerton, we would have easily hailed him as the new new name of the retro doom scene. In short, if we came from an underground made up of cellars and not photographic sets, we would all pretend to be happier with the walls of the dungeon made of stone and moss and not molded plastic. But the guitars are real, played. The recording is dark and mysterious. The songs aren’t bad, like Cry for Me, a kind of sixties ballad that perhaps was also good in the old Pinkerton repertoire, but which is better with big guitars. This time I trust the hype, Into the Realm it’s a nice, fun disc even for a grumpy Sabbathian old man like me, who can find himself alongside some photogenic youngster without breaking his balls too much. Ah, today, the evening of the day I’m writing, the live presentation of the album is scheduled in New York, together with Tower And Killer Kin, speaking of people who know how to make you itch. Varied and rather promising scene. Let’s see if it lasts. (Lorenzo Centini)
