This Noise Is Ours has always been about championing new bands and labels. Okay, so I do write about better known bands too, but for me it was always discovering new bands that I'd never heard that really got me into metal and hardcore. It was the feeling and satisfaction that you felt when spending hours reading music magazine's, album liner notes and of course the Internet and stumbling across those special bands. I'm not elitist though, far from it, I just found something in metal and hardcore that held my attention and that I could get really excited about and that is the essence of this blog.
That paragraph brings me to this review. Michigan City doom band Stone Magnum pretty much epitomise it. Forming in 2010 and taking their time to produce a doom-metal sound of their own, before releasing three-track demo and then a self-titled record in 2012 via founding member, Dean Tavernier's label Rest In Peace Records. They have just released their second full length earlier this year, again through Rest In Peace Records. From Time...To Eternity is seven expansive tracks of doom that only the US could produce.
Tracklist:-
1. From Time...To Eternity
2. Lonely God
3. In Tongues They Whisper
4. The Gallows of Ohrdruf
5. By An Omen I Went
6. Uncontained
7. In The Garden of Beasts
I'll admit that when I think of doom now, I tend to think of
Scandinavia or the UK. I know it's lazy but they both have a knack of producing
killer bands. The US despite it's illustrious history, seemed slightly off the
radar for me but thankfully Stone Magnum are addressing that. Their sound is
sorrowful and sombre, but at the time it's melodic and dips it's had toward the
NWOBHM. It's Candlemass than it is Swallow The Sun. The vocals of Nick
Hernandez feature the right balance of evil and histrionics, while the wailing
lead guitar helps beef up the music. The title track that kicks it all off
features some nice thrash-metal touches as well and the production aims toward
the classic era, as opposed to today's clinical school.
They find more an upbeat stride with Lonely God and with it
a slight channelling of Sabbath groove. I've not heard many bands with this
nostalgic edge for a while and it's pretty refreshing. The riffs, while
slightly toned down in the mix, sound pretty meaty and the drum sound is nice
and organic, with no triggers in sight. The grooviness and the subtle dirge
that subliminally buries itself in your head is hard to shake off. In Tongues
They Whisper is a perfect example of this, with it's sudden flourishes of
thrash and double bass which briefly snap you out of your trance and get you
head banging like they're playing right in front of you. Such accomplished
solos are what this type of music was made for!
The musicality of Stone Magnum really hits during fourth
track The Gallows of Ohrdruf and so does the realisation that their music is so
much more than just doom. The metal influences show through more and more and they
progress through From Time...To Eternity. There's also a strange sense of the
occult hidden in some of the vocal melodies, which remind me of why doom and
the devil make good bedfellows. That said, those occult melodies occur during
By An Omen I Want, which is probably the most straightforward heavy metal song
on the album, especially when those awesome dual-guitar melodies fill you ears.
They sound amazing!
Considering the extended lengths of their songs, they don't
outstay their welcome and before you know it, penultimate track Uncontained is
swooning you with its slow riffs and powerful vocals. The drums in the
background are almost hypnotic. Closing with probably the slowest track on From
Time...To Eternity was a nice touch, In The Garden of Beasts is probably the
closest to doom that I think Stone Magnum get. It's epic in a very understated
way and just highlights further how good their song writing is.
Sometime, not knowing much about a band before
listening to them has massive advantages, as you don't have any preconceptions
and more often than not, you're pleasantly surprised by their quality. That's
part of the fun of discovering and experiencing new bands. Stone Magnum are
such a band and will no doubt be noticed by more metal fans as this album gets
greater attention. The Internet may make it easy to discover bands, but the
chase is still a thrill!
I've been given the opportunity to help promote Stone Magnum by streaming "By An Omen I Went" on my bandcamp page. You can listen to the full track here for the next two and a half weeks:-
Of course, the whole album is streaming directly via Stone Magnum's bandcamp page too - http://stonemagnum.bandcamp.com/.
You can purchase the album digitally from their bandcamp page or head over to Rest In Peace Records at http://www.restinpeacerecords.us to find out how to order the CD version.
Stone Magnum Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stone-Magnum
Rest In Peace Records Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rest-In-Peace-Records
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