A special request from Greg(o)rian.

Doom, sludge, drone etc. is a genre that turns away all but the most serious of underground music lovers. Extremely niche, experimental and avant garde by definition; it's challenging to listen to. It's never casual, forgiving or easy; tourists are not welcome.

Greg(o)rian's bass player and fellow Romford pavement treader Tom Mullen asked me to review his bands first album; "Dormancy of Our Omniscient Masters", and this is what I have to say about it.


It is a rotten offering, carved from the blackened, fetid and weeping flesh of Greg(o)rian's collective body; a small piece of the tortured and imprisoned soul, lovingly donated to the listener. The guitar tone is pure filth scraped from beneath the fingernails of corpses found at the bottom of wells; the bass, heavy enough to shatter a concrete elephant, is a force holding your head beneath the waters of despair, denying you even the slightest breath of hope; it's almost simultaneously a lilting whisper which leads the listener, siren like, from sleep to death. Combined further still with distant screams of peril, mournfully blunt and unpolished vocals and pounding, relentless drumming the young bands first effort is one of great promise.


I feel that the band still has some way to go, this first album is no doom classic. More far reaching experimentation needs to be sought, an individual style must be forged; but for now seeds of a fan base have been sewn with 'Dormancy...' and time, patience, thought and work must be indulged in before the harvest can be enjoyed.




Greg(o)rian's debut is available for free download now, so what are you waiting for? Turn up your speakers, get your mates round, turn the lights down low... and have a doom party.

Martin


http://www.myspace.com/gregoriandoom