Gloomlurker
Realm of Swallowed Souls
Released – June 2012
Deathened Doom Metal
Self Released
Gloomlurker are a 5 piece Death/Doom Metal band from Grimsby, who formed in January 2012 and despite only having been formed less than 7 months ago they have impressively played with some great bands such as, Sarah Jezebel Deva, Severed Heaven and Infernal Creation.
Their E.P Realm of Swallowed Souls starts of with a track called, Bungalow of horrors, which initially kicks off with a death metal feel to it but as it progresses through the song it becomes more doom metal.
As the track continues it becomes quite repetitive and predictable and it doesn’t really blow you away with any kind of stunning guitar work, it is quite apparent that the band are far more doom metal orientated than the aforementioned death metal.
The second track, Scarlet Whispers, starts off with a standard open chorded jangle on the guitar which is pleasant enough to listen to and then the drums kick in, after that the song is in full doom metal drone with yet more unimpressive and repetitive guitar, bass, drum and vocal work.
Track three which is titled, Mask of Fortitude, is a drastic improvement on the first two tracks of the E.P!
It starts with a rather meaty, chunky guitar riff reminiscent of a lot of death metal bands and then it kicks into the song with yet again more doom metal styled riffage, it is a track that you could happily have on when working but I wouldn’t put it on if your expecting something heavy to mosh to.
Next up is the track, Crypt Crooks, which like track two on the E.P starts off with a pleasant open chorded guitar jangle and then as with the second track the drums kick in and the doom metal drone starts once again. The track itself I find very repetitive and I wouldn’t really want to listen to it on a regular basis.
The last track on the E.P is a cover of Nirvana’s song, Breed, wow!
What a drastic change and for me an improvement, this song you can actually get into and the band cover it pretty well. The vocals on this track are split into two, one clean and the other the familiar scream, the clean vocal is out of tune and doesn’t really work, however on the plus side the scream vocal on this track sounds great! If the track was all with the scream vocal I would much prefer it, this is by far the best track on the E.P in my opinion.
My overall thoughts on this E.P are, the mix itself isn’t quite right as I find the bass gets lost and the vocals are too deep in the mix, if the vocals were brought out more and had a clearer if not louder definition that would improve things drastically.
If you are a fan of death metal then this E.P is not for you, I don’t quite understand why the band have termed themselves as Death/Doom as they are far more doom than death, yes there are very fleeting instances of death metal but the overall speed and skill for that just isn’t there.
Considering the band have only been going 7 months this is a fair effort on their part and I applaud them on that, there is plenty more time to develop their sound and ideas for this band, personally I think they should drop the death metal label and just stick with being a doom metal band.
If you are into doom metal then you would be into Gloomlurker, I however am not a massive doom metal fan so this E.P isn’t really for me.
Overall the band have made a good effort and it does show but I do believe there is a lot of room for improvement and development.
2/5
– Scorpius –
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