Ramesses

Take the Curse

Ritual Productions 2010

Sludgy doom with elements of death, black metal, and other disastrous concoctions decimate your ear drums on Ramesses new album, Take The Curse.  From the roiling doom death of the album opener Iron Crow you know Ramesses means business.  Gigantic riffs that slowly swirl like a sea of mud are mashed up against some post-hardcore despair for a crushing effect.  Massive chimneys belch Funeral death riffs into the sky as the song draws to a close.  Sabbathy psychedelia ushers in Terrasaw.  Crawling death vocals are layered over dry, clean ones.  At times I am reminded by Mean Season's debut.  After a slow, sample-laden intro Black Hash Mass explodes into Transilvanian Hunger styled black metal riffing before settling into some stoic doom that reminds me of a sludged-out version of Candlemass' Well of the Souls.  Traditional doom riffing lingers throughout Vinho Dos Mortos and provides a backdrop for a nondescript sample.  Another Skeleton sizzles like burning honey as the track seeps forward and abruptly monolithic riffs riffs from the morass, drums circle like hungry vultures over a desiccated corpse.  Blasting black metal storms into the world of the living on Hand of Glory before curling up into a ball of rumbling doom, in a methodical downward descent.  Whereas The Weakening undulates with a southern doom feel, bleak and full of pesimism, graven vocals searing the ears with their fiery hatred.  An acrid, smokey feel pervades Take the Curse which burns your flesh into a charred ashen mess.  Ramesses is sludge doom at its tar-soaked best and Take the Curse leaves all within its wake ground into dust, lifeless and grey.