With the retirement of Reverend Bizarre (that still need a silver bullet, a wooden stick, garlic or what ever is needed to bring them really down), the world's doom metal scene was left with a huge gap just inside the centre of its heart. You see RB was (once again… is maybe?) one of the bands that gave boost to doom metal and forced it to abandon a long period of introspection and insecurity. So the question unavoidably came. The throne is empty; can there be any successors? I guess yes, but not in the sense of replacement.
One of the candidates is their compatriots The Wandering Midget, a band that owns a lot to the sound of RB. Their EP "I Am the Gate" was hailed as one of the most promising entries in doom metal scene and that was 100% true. Because the Finnish trio really showed that they can play a critical role with their dark, gloomy, obscure, old (very old) school doom metal. "The Serpent Coven" is an album that mixes 70's gloomy heavy rock, ‘80s classic metal and most specific NWOBHM and contemporary doom metal a la RB (which again owns too much to the old stuff). Is it retro? In a sense yes, since the production deliberately refers to these sound colours. There are elements of Witchfinder General, Cathedral and Witchcraft in their sound too that lead to a tempting approach of doom metal. The atmosphere is similar, which means that you get your daily dose of fog, moors, piles of woods, altars, daggers, nails, chains, top hats and burning witches, but this time together with octopus tentacles and formless creatures (Lovecraftian literature is something that the band seems to admire). Though most of the songs run more than ten minutes in average there are no shades of getting tired, annoyed or bored. On the contrary, due to the theatrical vocal performance of Samuel Wormius and the various inventions of the band, such as ritualistic choruses or discrete jamming sessions, such as the one in "Bring Forth the Accused", the album runs flawless. Together with the aforementioned track you can seek for sonic pleasure in "Family Curse" (absolutely fantastic) and "The Serpent Coven". In short "The Serpent Coven" is an exceptional debut (it stills counts only a couple minutes more than their EP) from a talented band. I do not know if they will inherit the throne. The only thing that is certain is that they show constant progress and that's very promising.
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