Dance the Marble Naked

So what we have here is one of those early 90s death-doom records out of England. Now you may think I am dismissing the record entirely due to it being derivative in some way, but I most certainly am not. I would personally argue that this is at least as good as all those classic records from that scene, and is a classic record in its own right.

Musically, it's a similar situation to a record like Paradise Lost's immortal record Icon in that the music is primarily downtrodden, depressing, moody, etc, but it also knows how to fucking ROCK. Amazingly catchy chord progressions that are heavy in that early Sabbath or Saint Vitus vein combined with the amazing melodies of a Paradise lost, My Dying Bride, etc, and the effect is immediately felt. This is a record of atmosphere, but the guitar lines are so goddamned awesome, and beautifully written, as well as emotionally compelling. In fact, I recently rediscovered this by looking through a portion of my CD collection I hadn't combed through in quite some time, as I put it in, I remembered basically the entire thing, because it's that memorable.

Vocals, as has been mentioned any time this particular album gets brought up, are not too great, they definitely get the job done, and don't really hinder my enjoyment at all, but they're kind of goofy, especially in the middle of the first track where the band stops everything except for the vocals. The clean vocals, on the other hand, are actually pretty good, real depressive, and melancholic, obviously perfect for this music.

These are just amazingly catchy, depressing metal songs that actually aren't corny (except maybe the vocals) there's no gimmick, it's just well written songs, cool riffs, cooler melodies, and that's all there needs to be.

I think this is an album the metal crowd should at least be familiar with. It's probably more unknown than known, even though it's real good stuff. Fans of death-doom are obviously the people who this would appeal to, even fans of more traditional type doom should check it out, I'd even say people into Gothic stuff would probably find things to enjoy about it. Fuck it, if you like doom metal, I found something else for you to like.

This albums fucking good, get it now.

This band combines mid-period Paradise Lost & My Dying Bride to create their own (arguably) original sound in that they never sound too much like the aforementioned. They’re speed is more of a moderate mid-paced tempo throughout the cd.

The guitars go from distorted to clean (periodically). The bass and the drums are more or less standard with a few odd time signatures from the drummer here and there. Musically speaking, there are some good ideas on display here, the melodies and song structures are well put together. Some of the weaker points about this would be some of these ideas aren’t expanded upon or stop abruptly, but this is a debut after all.

There are only two real flaws on display here; the thin production and the singer.

Too many Doom Metal bands have been pulled under due to poor singers and this could be a/the reason they are no longer around. His spoken/clean vocals are fine and should have been used more often. His Death vocals (if they can so be called) make it sound as if he’s trying to shit a boulder throughout the entire record.

In conclusion this is a great debut album from a band with perhaps one of the worst vocalists of all time. If you’re looking for something good check these guys out.