I feel like traditional doom metal has been missing a leading band for the last several years since Reverend Bizarre broke up. There have definitely been good doom bands, but Reverend Bizarre gave the genre a truly outspoken leader. Enter Pilgrim, a band with a similar look and feel, from the historical yet sinister cover art, to the crushingly heavy and morosely slow doom metal therein, Pilgrim definitely recalls the good Reverend.
Pilgrim has only been around for a couple of years now, and this is their debut full-length album after a demo and a split, so of course there is going to be some room to grow. That is definitely the case here. The album kicks off with some monolithic riffs and the opening track is definitely a steamroller of a song. Unfortunately almost every song after that takes the exact same formula. The result is a long lumbering album with a lot of songs that sound virtually the same. Only the last track really changes up the formula with a rolling faster-paced start before slowing down a little and then speeding up again. A little more variety would likely help this band quite a bit.
Pilgrim has released a fairly impressive debut, but they definitely have some room to grow as artists. It will be interesting to see where they go from here.
Lord Vicar! That's your leader, right there. RB's Kimi Kärki plays guitar for them. The Gates of Slumber would also be a fine choice.
ReplyDeleteMy complaint about this record was the same. I accidentally posted it the same day as another article (a guest review by you, if I'm not mistaken) so I don't think it got noticed much.