Review Summary: Great debut from an emerging sludge/doom metal band...
I recently stumbled upon a cool emerging band from the UK, called Poseidon. They have just released their first LP,
Prologue and finished a promo tour supporting Mothership on select dates too. The guys play a heavy mix of sludge, doom and noise metal, reminiscing YOB, Ancestors and Inter Arma. While listening, I noticed how easy I got through the debut, as each track shares these nice, (at times) airy structures and brings something slightly different to the table. The two bookending beasts carry a brooding atmosphere that daringly pushes on you, however, there was significant work put on dynamics likewise. You don’t realize how fifteen minutes just passed you by. ‘The Beginning the End the Colony’ builds tension before turning into a scorcher with sharp guitar leads. The trudging riffs slowly crawl while clean vocals hardly make their way through the wall of noise. The pace gradually rises until halfway when it switches into a mid-tempo, bass-driven segment. The guitars take off on effects-laden staccato riffs, only to return for a second dose of anger, now with growls and more urgent riffage. On the other hand, ‘Omega’ is an all-encompassing epic that grows from nostalgic, phased chords to a hazy, distorted monster complete with noisy sound scapes and voice samples. The rampant rhythms lead us into several dirty grooves with sparse verses included after the 10-minute mark. They really manage to pull off a dramatic tone like it’s the end of everything.
Meanwhile, ‘Mother Mary Son of Scorn’ is a mournful acoustic number which shows us there’s more to Poseidon than just loud rockers. It evokes a cold sound, putting emphasis on accentuated strums, whereas midway, a pulsing beat and slide guitar leads turn everything into an Americana ditty. The clean vocals are nicely punctuating along as well as the piano lines appearing at various moments during the song. The way they let the progressions play for minutes on end has a nice, hypnotizing effect on you. Then, you’re bashed in the head with ‘Chainbreaker’, a shorter, effective rager. The sludgy guitars easily kick down the door, contrasting the friendly vocals and finally, the coda is simply crushing.
All in all, this is a really solid debut from a young band at the beginning of their sonic explorations. Hopefully, Poseidon will follow the right path, at the same time developing a niche of their own, to create even more rewarding follow ups. There is a lot of potential here and it can be rightfully exploited. So, especially now when you are not bombarded with dozens of releases each week, take your time and listen to
Prologue.
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