Doom Jazz

A specific mood is required in order to take on listening to anything that is tagged under the drone genre. It can often become quite a tedious genre to follow due to the amount of sub-par bands around. Those who insist drone is merely about creating monotonous songs, that repeat again and again over a long period of time are wrong. Drone, to me, is all about the feelings it provokes. Whilst the feeling I get during drone songs can often be called boredom, there are a few bands that subject the audience with something worthwhile. This only tends to occur once in a while though. Agonhymn are like many others in this new surge of bands that see crossing over genres as ideal. Misplaced aggression where simplistic melody would suffice and many other bad traits all mixed together to create a mesh of nothingness.


Agonhymn's debut isn't the poorest of poor records, its just lacking in any real substance. Whilst there are a few nice grooves, the vast majority of the album swims in mediocrity. The lack of vocals on an album like this is an act of suicide. Vocals are imperative to bands like this because they carry the sound over more effectively than most of the instruments. The guitars are here to supply melody, and whilst they do do that for the most part, the riffs aren't spectacular. Nothing mind altering is to be found here. I tend to find listening to anything tagged drone is like taking a trip on drugs. You explore the inner workings of the mind, body and soul. Drone can take you to places in your mind you only ever go to whilst feeling very specific emotions. Agonhymn don't manage this on 'Doom Jazz'. Instead of providing the audience with a slab of heavy drone and a slice of aggressive sludge, the band provides us with unnecessary tracks and songs that over exert themselves. The longer songs out do themselves. Whilst I am a fan of long songs, the ones present on this album don't fit in. The majority of the songs focus themselves on short bursts of controlled rage, but the longer tracks can't extend those feelings over an extended period of time very well.


The mix of genres confuses me a bit. 'Doom Jazz' runs in and out of genres far too fast. Sometimes I feel that the short songs are too short and the long songs are too long. Its a disaster! The fusion doesn't work, lets be honest. Slabs on drone, in terms of the attempted soundscapes, are placed on top of lazy doom riffs and furthermore placed on top of instrumental sections that must be taken from a dirty kind of sludge and a slow kind of stoner music. It doesn't work. The songs place too much importance on the percussion, which sounds out of place for large parts of songs. There are vocals used, but rarely. When they are, they don't carry the songs forward. Instead, the vocals and the instrumental sections stand side by side in mediocrity. Whilst there is the odd injection of melodic riffs, the album is laboured. Its not comfortable in its own skin. Thankfully, this is a debut record. Things can only improve.

Sadly, this isn't an interpretation of Bitches Brew done in the style of Reverend Bizarre. Instead we have another fairly run of the mill drone-doom album of the "one long track broken into parts" variety. It's not all doom and gloom though; it appears as if half-way through the recording process, aside from "chucking a few shrimps on the barbie", Byrne and Brewer sat down
for a nice bong.

The first quarter of the song/first three parts of the album follow the usual drone template. Sporadic crunching guitar accompanied by drumming thats heavy on the crash and easy on the tempo. Come 'Doom Jazz Part 4' however, and you may be forgiven for thinking that Bongzilla have crept into the album playlist. It still plods along at barely walking pace, but is pulled along by a suffocating groove. '...Part 5' ups the ante again, with clean strumming leading into some altogether more frenetic riffing and '...Part 6' drops us back into Stonerville with the introduction of some Dixie/Muleboy style barbed wire gargling vocalizations. By the closing part however, I'd stopped paying attention and started skinning up.

The minimalist nature of drone-doom makes it a difficult genre to really stand out in. If you were sitting on the fence with regards to this style of music, 'Doom Jazz' isn't going to knock you off. However, the more patient and/or drug riddled among you may glean some enjoyment out of it.