May 23, 2010

Reviewer: M. J.

When it comes to doom, atmosphere is everything. If a band sets the mood just right, you can float for days - as if riding in a dreamy cloud car on a slow motion roller coaster in the sky of your mind. Yes, it can be as heady of an experience as any derived from the most potent drug (choose your poison). The Wounded Kings want to take you on such a trip with their sophomore release The Shadow Over Atlantis.

Be prepared to strap on your seatbelt for the 10:22 minute opener “The Swirling Mist”. It sets the stage for the rest of the album and if you can make your way through it, then you will find yourself enjoying the rest of the ride. The song starts off with a meandering, lumbering guitar riff that swells and intensifies in step with a diffused drum cadence. Stealthy, yet distinctive vocals by George Birch leisurely worm their way into the intoxicating mix - seemingly far off and obscured by the heavy atmosphere. The band creates interesting aural spatial relationships by using trippy guitar and vocal echoes which are further enhanced by preternatural strains from a hoary organ. The feelings evoked could be translated into something visually jarring; like entering a graveyard near dusk as “the swirling mist” rises and the last vestiges of a cold autumnal sun wane in the evening sky. One is soon to be terrifyingly alone… enveloped in murky darkness.






After the eerie mood inducing first track, the near equally long “Baptism of Atlantis” gloomily appears out of its shadows. It continues the musical blueprint established by its predecessor albeit with a livelier pace and honed intensity. Fittingly, it culminates with a killer melodic droning guitar solo outro. As it fades away, the album segues into the short (two minutes) instrumental that is “Into the Ocean’s Abyss”.  Its drawn out plaintive piano notes are accompanied by a low-tone guitar fuzz that perfectly meld in this transitional interlude before the listener is thrust into the next song, “The Sons of Belial”.  Spiraling down in psychedelic off kilter circles of sound, the song’s lyrics detail a soul’s struggling plunge into a metaphorical hell. All the while, the listener is being pummeled with unrelenting lugubrious chord progressions. Miraculously, the landing is gentle and nearly uneventful as the ephemeral wisps of “Deathless Echo” welcome its victim with surprising warmth and tenderness. The final act is now at hand as we drift along an entrancing river of muted lo-fi noise. Ghostly choral voices emanate from the darkness as a growing light emerges on the horizon; drawing us toward an “Invocation of the Ancients”. In this coda, all of the exceptional and imaginative ideas of The Shadow Over Atlantis, are wrestled together in one dark massive tapestry of enchanting beauty and depressive bliss.

The Shadow Over Atlantis unfolds at its own pace and challenges the conventions what the doom genre has become. Boldly taking the road never traveled, can reveal wonders untold.

Release Date: January 11, 2010
Label: I Hate Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  The Swirling Mist
2.  Baptism of Atlantis
3.  Into the Ocean's Abyss
4.  The Sons of Belial
5.  Deathless Echo
6.  Invocation of the Ancients

Total playing time41:35

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*Comments:

The Wounded Kings - The Shadow Over Atlantis

The rising, the swirling.....mist
Forming halos around your head
Cold black fingers......reaching
Caress, caress of the dead