Release Date: January 20th 2023. Record Label: King Volume Records/Kozmik Artifactz. Formats: DD/Vinyl
The Oath: Tracklistin
1.Well of Fates 05:22
2.The Giant 05:51
3.Beyond the Frozen Sea 00:50
4.The Last Crossing 04:37
5.Chasm of Time 03:20
6.The Sacrifice 04:41
7.Serpent Temple 05:53
8.The Oath 05:31
Members
Jesse Swanson - Guitars and Vocals
Sean Serrano - Guitars
Andy Chism - Bass
Pat Moore - Drums
Review
I don’t feature Traditional Doom Metal bands enough on the blog. I maybe more of a modern day Doom Metal fun but I do love to hear some Traditional Doom Metal from time to time. So I was mighty impressed by Doom Metallers Lord Mountain debut album The Oath. An album that fuses classic 70’s and 80’s Doom Metal, Hard Rock and Heavy Metal. Throw in a healthy obsession with 80's based Fantasy and Adventure folklore then Lord Mountain has the recipe for Doom Metal success.
Using similar themes and sounds from bands such as Black Sabbath, Pentagram, Saint Vitus and Pagan Altar. The Mountain shine throughout the album with their music that is quite powerful with the band showing a fine talent of writing highly melodic music that has classic “OLD SCHOOL” feeling down to a fine art.
Opening song Well Of Fates is quite fantastical with the lyrics and Jesse’s vocal delivery used for this track. The song has an aggressive fast-paced nature with the gloomy 80’s Hard Rock feeling. The instrumental work does change to a slower style of music that Black Sabbath excelled at. Maybe, a bit too out there for some with the fantasy elements fully taking over the dynamic of the song and perhaps the whole album. There’s a lot of cool extended riffs and guitar jams on this track with Lord Mountain being true to their creative selves.
Second song The Giant is another epic journey into the Traditional Doom Metal world with a slight Classic Heavy Metal mentality heard within the epic grooves. Everything else is pure Fantasy Doom Metal with Jesse’s vocals having a slight DIO quality to them. The instrumental work is excellent and rightfully intense in all the right places when Lord Mountain goes slightly off the range to play some excellent and OTT guitar solos . Shades of Psychedelic Rock appear here and there which allows this to be one of the standout tracks on the album.
Third song Beyond The Frozen Sea is a fifty second musical interlude with a gloomy instrumental solitary guitar that has a world weary and solitary feeling to it.
Lord Mountain gets back to business with the fourth track The Last Crossing which has a more contemporary feeling with the lyrics compared to the other tracks on the album. The music is swift and straight to the point with Lord Mountain excelling yet again merging the different strands of 70’s and 80’s Doom Metal for a more classic style of Hard Rock/Metal.
The Oath has a sublime style of nostalgia on the album which shines through the most on the second half of the album on tracks such as Chasm Of Time, The Sacrifice and the stunning title track The Oath. The grooves are LOUD, POWERFUL and PLENTIFUL with Lord Mountain having a hell of time bringing a more modern feeling to certain parts of the album which is perhaps down to the superb production values that The Oath ultimately contains.
Lord Mountain has delivered the goods with The Oath and this ends up being one of the best Traditional Doom Metal albums I’ve come across in a long time.
This is a fantastic ride from start to finish that is brimming with outstanding creative ideas that is helped along by awesome grooves along the way.
Excellent and Highly Recommended.
Words by Steve Howe
Thanks to Todd at King Volume Records for the promo.
The Oath is available to buy now on DD/Vinyl via King Volume Records (USA) and Kozmik Artifactz
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