It’s first review of the year, and I’ve often thought that the first one can prepare the tone for the year. A good release sets up a feeling of quiet optimism, whilst conversely, a lemon can paint a landscape of “meh”. Well, with ‘Blackbourne Souls’ being the first to land, the tone is one of massively epic Doom, with a well deserved capital “D”!

I’ll admit deliberately avoiding their 2015 debut EP when it was bandied about, deciding that a band called Lord Vigo, with a record named ‘Under Carpathian Sun’ would be a cookie cutter black metal by the numbers release, and I am no fan of the corpse paint, so gave it a wide berth. Seems I was wrong in my initial assessment, and must offer my apologies for judging this metal book by its cover. Yes, the new release with suitably blackened title of ‘Blackbourne Souls’ and demon adorned cover could well give that first impression, and indeed the howling effects of the opening seconds ‘Oh Mother Earth’ teased out that feeling, when the drawn out riffs and clean melancholic vocals cut in it is apparent that this Teutonic band is firmly rooted in the Sabbathian worship of the riff, as well as bathing in the same misery laden waters as Paradise Lost.

‘When The Bloodlust Draws On Me’ continues in the same vein, but with Hammond sounding keys adding extra accents to the thundering rhythm, the drums and bass being every bit as dominant as the guitar in a track that could easily be from an early Candlemass release, snatches of samples of near monastic chants building on the Gothic textures of the opening track. ‘Great City In The Sky’ throws in a taste of Lovecraftian madness to the music, Vinz Clortho singing of the supernatural whilst channelling a breakdown in sanity through his tortured vocals, the surrounding music forming a dark summoning every bit as much as it does an album track. By the time ‘Blackbourne Souls’ pounds out of the speakers this epic nature reaches a new peak, with a taste of Prog thrown in with the sword and sorcery lyrics, sampled canon fire, and gentle musical interlude that underscores a spoken piece, followed by a soaringly light extended guitar solo. It’s fair to say the band do not stick to a one paced delivery, as they demonstrate in the different tempos running through the near nine minutes of the title track.

Fascination with the esoteric continues though the album, from the Cimmerian thunder of ‘Blasphemy’ to the X-Files worship of the epically titled ‘Ishtar II – Hail Me, Fire In The Night’; I guess it’s a sign of my vintage that whilst I look to the likes of ‘Quatermass’, or the more recent ‘Sapphire and Steel’ and ‘Kolchak’ for a dose of nostalgic downbeat TV horror, there are whole new generations for whom The X-Files is a memory of their youth. Ho hum, time marches on.

One thing that their first self produced offering ‘Under Carpathian Sun’ did share with the black metal scene, as well as some of the language and imagery was the DIY ethic and sound so beloved by the followers of all things kvlt. Admittedly it didn’t go as far as sounding like it was recorded in somebody’s bedroom on a Fisher Price “My First Tape Recorder”, but the EP, which I revisited several times as part of my review research, was undoubtedly rough around the edges. ‘Blackbourne Souls’ has leapt forward in terms of production values, but fortunately it is not so polished as to become the testimony to the engineer rather than the musicians involved, keeping a sound that the band should be able to reproduce in the live arena.

(7.5/10 Spenny)

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https://lordvigo.bandcamp.com/releases