Anguish: Through the Archdemon's Head

Sweden's Anguish have arrived with their debut full-length release Through the Archdemon's Head. This is crushing doom metal, clearly influenced by Candlemass, Black Sabbath, Cathedral, and Celtic Frost, so if you love massive riffage, you've come to the right place.

Anguish really know how to put together huge riffs as well as tasty lead harmonies, which you can hear to great effect on the brontosaurus stomp of "Book of Fox" and "When the Ancients Dare to Walk". The twin guitar attack of David and Kribbe work wonders throughout this CD, really conjuring up a feel of dread & menace on crushers like "Dawn of Doom", "Morbid Castle", and "Illusive Damnation". On the down side, the vocals of bassist J. Dee are monotonous and grating at times. He delivers a scratchy croak that falls somewhere in between Tom G. Warrior and Shagrath and unfortunately does not mix in any variety at all. His tortured rasp would have been fine in spots, but he doesn't change things up one bit here, and there are many points on ths CD where some aggressive clean vocals or even some deep growls would have really improved matters.

Despite the vocal limitations, Through the Archdemon's Head is a pretty enjoyable slice of monstrous doom.

Track Listing
1. (Intro) Through the Archdemon's Head (2:44)
2. Book of Fox (6:07)
3. When the Ancients Dare to Walk (6:04)
4. Dawn of Doom (8:27)
5. Lair of the Gods (6:56
6. Illusive Damnation (6:52)
7. The Veil (7:08)
8. Morbid Castle (11:56)
Total Time: 56:14

Added: January 15th 2012
Reviewer: Pete Pardo
Score:
Related Link: Dark Descent Records
Hits: 2353
Language: english

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