King Doom

After losing most of the band since the release of Witchburner in 1985, Andree Witchking rebuilt the Mercy line-up and returned with this statement of perseverance and triumph called King Doom.

The booming, distorted voice of King Doom himself begins "Death's Company" as he announces that he has come to judge the people of this earth. After His declaration, some discordant piano noise reminiscent of the middle section of Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter" floats through the void that remains as you wonder what to expect of the songs to come. Will they crush you with glacier-sized riffs? Will they gallop forward like children of the grave and take you along for the ride? How many other planets has King Doom judged and what became of them? The suspense builds and then the song begins in earnest. From there onward this album earns its name with straightforward heavy doom. "Black Magic" features thick and wretched Trouble-styled riffing and a lurching solo section that is nothing short of pure doom bliss. Just lean back for this one as the heaviness crushes you like bubbly molten lava. Be sure to save some of yourself for "Heartbreak In Hell" because that song dredges yet another crawling and dragging middle section out of the darkness of doom metal's misery-laden past to remind you just why you like this funky doom scene in the first place.

A variation of one of the first riffs of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" is utilized to begin "Evil Prepares" before "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" gets your head banging. For some bands, this frequent ode to classic songs can become trite and embarrassing (Bloodbath! What's up? The Chasm! Dude! Hammerfall! You guys are still around?), but Mercy do it in a way that makes you feel a celebration for the old school in a way that doesn't come across as a glorified tribute album. To break it down in technical terms, while the riffs are easy to recognize, the vocal lines are different and add a perspective to the music that allows you to see it in a new way. The three acoustic pieces on this album, "1953-1988," "Memory," and "Sorrows," serve a similar purpose to those found on Black Sabbath's Master of Reality in providing a moment of relief and introspection before the heaviness returns to keep you grooving. They're beautiful, haunting, and the short track lengths make you yearn for them that much more.

To Mercy's credit, they didn't replace Messiah Marcolin with a singer that has a similar voice. Instead, Rick Wine's vocals are like a hybrid of Eric Wagner's mid-range punctuated by the high-pitched wails of Savatage's Jon Oliva. This helps add a new flavor to the palate of their sound instead of trying to create Witchburner, Part 2. They could've attempted to compensate for the loss of Messiah by becoming a baby version of Candlemass in order to compete, but it's encouraging to see that Mercy mastermind Andree Witchking was too secure in his own vision for metal to succumb to that. King Doom is a progression for the band in that the mood is darker and more ominous than its previous works.

Overall, King Doom is an essential album for fans of doom metal. Who is King Doom anyway? Is he the disembodied voice of the skull on the cover? How big is that skull? There's nothing in the photo to use as scale so it could be nine inches tall or nine miles high. Earthbound human or time-travelling giant? This is the kind of thing you think about when being pounded by doom as heavy as this. If you enjoyed anything about Black Sabbath's Master of Reality, Trouble's The Skull (too obvious considering the album cover?), or Mercy's previous albums, then this CD is definitely worth your time.