Album: Causticgod, 'Sullen Sanctuary'

What is it with Ireland and doom? Since I’ve started looking into the Irish metal scene proper, I’ve increasingly gained the feeling that we gravitate to it, North and South alike, with releases and the festival scene being heavily weighted in its favour. This is not a problem; it’s a damn good genre, and I’m endlessly impressed at the extent to which bands leave their mark by taking its key features in different directions: you have heavier death-doom acts like The Crawling and Graveyard Dirt going heavier, post-rock acts like Third Island and zhOra making it stranger, and melodic or Celtic influences giving us Old Season and Darkest Era. Evidently the simple, recognisable tenets of doom give bands plenty of opportunity to carve out their own identity. Enter Causticgod, who find another direction again, with a debut record that is fresh and familiar at once.

In keeping with this trend of diversity, Causticgod's niche is deep in the classic, stoner doom province of the scene. It's driven by clean, sometimes grungy vocals over heavy and uncomplicated melodies. The more brutal aspects of the sound mainly comes from low, chunky guitars, and much of what's on offer is downright retro. There’s plenty of variety among the tracks too. They’re all operating from the same playbook, and are minimalistic for the most part, but there’s a wide range of elements being played around with. The lads know when to switch from slow, rhythmic, doom to the showier sounds of stadium grunge, and incorporate shredding and harsh vocals where necessary; there's a strong sense of timeliness in all the tracks, keeping the disparate elements together. 

Opening track ‘Mourning Scorn’ is laid-back and confident. The guitars boast a bit with some quality shredding over slow drums, and the eventual vocals are clean and groovy; I get a bit of a Soundgarden vibe off this, although without the unnecessary Eddie Vedder impersonation that such singers often fall prey to. The groove metal vibe is something of a trap, however, as ‘Bound to Abandon’ goes heavier almost immediately; the tempo is still slow, but the guitars roll in full-blast and the vocals get surprisingly raucous. I say ‘surprisingly’, because it’s not a style of heavy singing that I’m familiar with; Tom has a deep wail that’s almost-but-not-quite guttural. I’d compare it to Slayer vocals, and it’s placed alongside guitars that are nowhere near as heavy, to a rather original effect.  He sings in at least three different styles on this record, which is a mark of some impressive versatility. ‘Convergence’ returns to cleaner styles, and it’s a different sound again, an epic doom song with slightly chanty vocals over very slow, driving guitars. ‘Epoch’ has a surprisingly lively opening, and then folds back into an odd hybrid of epic and groovy.

By now you should be aware that Causticgod are full of surprises. If you’re not, they follow this with an instrumental track, ‘Precelestial Sojourn’, which manages to generate something of a spacey, progressive feeling without the use of any wild effects; the pedals come in later on, but the song has already established its identity without them. ‘The Infected’ opens with a voice clip from a heckling incident at an old Isle of Wight festival, I believe (thank you Google), and leverages quality slow-thrash. ‘Warning High’ has an interesting balance of psychedelic melody and raw sound, and ‘Illusory Solution’ successfully combines the elements the rest of the album has played around with. Despite a seemingly stripped-back set of techniques, Causticgod wring the maximum creative potential out of what they’ve put together.

Overall, 'Sullen Sanctuary' is a strong offering; a rough, dirty, down-to-earth album and a really promising debut. Causticgod’s lineup have a wealth of experience under their belt (Astralnaut, Bad Boat, Okus, Strangle Wire and more!), and it shows. If you want a fresh band on Ireland’s copious doom scene, or you’re fond of classic, manly, no-nonsense sounds in your metal, I strongly advise you to get on board with this one. Long live doom, and long live Causticgod! 

Favourite Track: Convergence
For fans of: Black Sabbath, Two Tales of Woe, Old Season, Baleful Creed, Acid Bath, Twilight of the Gods

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