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GROTESQUE BLISS “Grotesque Bliss”
GROTESQUE BLISS “Grotesque Bliss”
By Dr. Abner Mality
Time once more to suffer the Wrath of Plod! More glum and grisly death/doom, this time hailing from Australia. The band features members of TEMPLE NIGHTSIDE and GRAVE UPHEAVAL so this ain’t their first graveyard rodeo. Despite being almost numbingly unoriginal, I remain a sucker for this kind of stuff when performed correctly. As GROTESQUE BLISS does here!
Simple riffing ranging from a trudge to an agonized crawl is what these guys offer up. Production is appropriately cryptic and stifling, vocals are properly morbid. I would not call these guys “funeral doom”, but they’re about one beat above that pace. Self-titled opening track plods in slower GRAVE and INCANTATION fashion...DEAD CONGREGATION is also a touchstone. Things get more crushing and slow from there, with “Bringeth Death To Life” and “Old Earth” both covered with cobwebs and the dust of ages. “Sanguine Bebimus”, whatever that is, starts off with actual GROOVE and is the closest these guys get to N’Awlins style sludge.
At album’s end, the debt to Yorkshire doom metal is settled, as “Slipping Between the Cracks of Grief” has the early PARADISE LOST/MY DYING BRIDE sound down pat, with even some weepy melody creeping in. And to seal the deal, the album ends with a rib-rattling cover of MDB’s “I Am The Bloody Earth”! Account closed!
Satisfying doom-death from GROTESQUE BLISS here, but honestly, it is not an indispensable purchase…
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