In the Shadow of Doom

A regrettable side effect of the otherwise pleasant experience of getting promo copies from labels is the occasional absence of lyrics. This is felt all the more keenly on a Faustcoven album; the blackened doom duo's horror-story lyrical content, made unintelligible by Gunnar Hansen's hoarsely growled vocal delivery, was always a good bonus to listening to the band's tortuous sound. But even without the icing, the musical cake they bake is delicious -- as long as you like sulphur flavoring. As on Hellfire and Funeral Bells, the sound is the product of sullen, ringing guitars mingled with despairing drumbeats that seem soft and muted, as if the sticks were covered in muck. The vocals, usually a grated whisper that opens up to a croak, overwhelm the con fused mix of rhythm instruments at the back of the mix when the band cranks up to full power, but the meat and potatoes of the sound isn't black metal dissonance but rather traditional and stoner-doom riffs, buried down in the lower end of the mix but solid enough to support the whole structure. The first two tracks have some swing to them, but the band gets down to slower dragging with the ominously-named Yet He Walks. Lair of Rats and As White as She Was Pale are also standouts here; the first combines black and doom metal the most smoothly of any of the tracks on the album, while the second has a lumbering feel reminding me of early Hooded Menace. The final track goes for a slower, more undifferentiated sound, apparently to produce a darker atmosphere. Some might like this, though I felt like the Faustcoven sound does better when they overwhelm the listener with something crushing instead. Doomier than Hellfire and Funeral Bells, In the Shadow of Doom proves itself a worthy successor to Faustcoven's last, and definitely worth picking up.