Review Summary: Fantastic doom metal album with catchy songs, evil guitar riffs and crazy flute solos.
It is nice to see that doom metal is alive and thriving in this day and age, we seem to have a lot of diverse and interesting bands in the metal scene right now. One that caught my attention a while back is the 4-doom outfit from Toronto named Blood Ceremony. The name supposedly comes from a 70s B-Horror flick and you couldn't ask for a more fitting category of movies for a doom metal band in my opinion.
What caught my attention at first was that the band had a female vocalist, not only that but a female vocalist who also played the flute. If that doesn't peek your curiosity I don't know what will.
The band formed back in 2006 and released their first full-length LP two years later, titled "Blood Ceremony".
The first ever sound that hits you from this album is an epic organ from the intro to the title track "Master of Confusion" which then blasts you with an awesome guitar riff that could have been taken straight from a Black Sabbath album if you didn't know any better. This band has definitely done their homework when it comes to doom metal, because this whole album pretty much lives and breathes it.
Coming in at about 48 minutes this album packs 9 tracks of black sorcery right out of the witches' coven. The whole theme around this album is about witches and sorcery which makes it quite fitting that they have a female vocalist to chant all these evil spells.
Speaking of the vocals, Alia O'Brien does a solid job. I can't say that her vocals are anything special but she hits all the right notes and her voice does fit in quite well with the rest of the music and the theme of this band.
Almost every track on this album is a memorable one, there are a lot of catchy guitar riffs to be found as well as crazy flute solos scattered all around this LP. Alia definitely shows off her flute skills on here and they are most definitely epic. The band also mixes things up a bit with tracks like "Of Wine and Wizardry" which sounds for a lack of a better explanation like a medieval fair. The band gives off some prog vibes with tracks like "Hymn to Pan" and "Hop Toad" and overall do a great job of making every track on this album having it's own identity.
Both the drumming and the bass are solid on this album, but the two things that stand out the most are definitely the guitar and the flute. This is a great doom album that not only provides you with straight to the core old school doom metal with catchy as hell guitar riffs but also mixes things up with some prog elements, sweet interludes and tasty flute solos. If you enjoy Sabbath, there's no way that you won't enjoy Blood Ceremony.