Review Summary: Awful album title and cover aside, Prolapsed Brainus is a solid stoner doom record that showcases Day Old Man's wealth of potential.
Let's get the obvious out of the way: Yes, that album title is disgusting and juvenile. Yes, the cover looks like it was drawn by Napoleon Dynamite after one too many bong hits. But bad first impressions aside, Day Old Man make some damn solid stoner doom. Bassist Derek Schulz and drummer Bobby Theberge have achieved a fantastic heaviness through their two-piece bass-centric setup, and they complete that heaviness through their voices, which alternate between chant-like singing and wonderfully exasperated screams. They keep their music interesting by bucking the traditional doom metal formula of writing a riff or two and sitting on them for twenty minutes. Instead, they choose to shift frequently between several modes, ranging from slow motion dirge to energetic headbanger. Opener "Banal Corral," for example, shifts tempos and time signatures over half a dozen times in its seventeen-and-a-half-minute timespan. Such variety is refreshing in a genre that normally thrives on stasis.
Yet that same malleable quality can also be a weakness. Day Old Man have given themselves the freedom to treat their songs as a playground, but their editorial process has left a lot of fat to be trimmed, and occasionally some element--a synthesizer melody here, a ten-second drum solo there--falls flat. The worst is a bizarre interjection about halfway through "Portal Rips," in which one voice makes slurping sounds for twenty seconds while another groans like Tina Belcher. Such are the pitfalls of a still-amateur band recording an album in their living room (no seriously--check the liner notes). But the majority of Prolapsed Brainus is solid doom metal with enough refreshing touches to make it worth a listen, and it demonstrates that Day Old Man have a lot of potential. Their next album could be a truly great addition to the stoner doom catalog, as long as they take themselves more seriously, tighten up their songwriting, and seek better production. And pick a better album title and cover artist, of course.
