(Doom Metal with Progressive Rock) Black Hole - Land of Mystery - 1985 (Reissued 2010), FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

By the time 1985 came around, doom metal and psychedelic rock was a thing of the past. The era of bands such as Black Sabbath and such influenced bands had come to pass, and now in 1985 there were albums being released such as Bonded by Blood and Seven Churches, fast, violent, thrash, that was far different then the doom metal of earlier times. The doom metal scene was shrinking, as many bands had moved on to faster music. However this obscure Italian band Black Hole defied the trend of the times, even when a lot of metal bands around the world, even some of their fellow countrymen such as Bulldozer, were releasing much faster, destructive music. Black Hole however was much slower, and still stuck to the pattern of dark, atmospheric music that Black Sabbath had produced in the early 1970s.
One of the main strengths that Black Hole had over other metal bands however, was atmosphere. This album evokes a very dark, eerie, atmosphere. Imagine being trapped deep in a dark dungeon under an evil sorcerers castle, with not a sound but the occasional scurrying of rats, not a light but the flicker of a torch on the spiral staircase at the end of the dungeon hall, the smell of death and decay around you, the snowy mountains and looming dark green forests visible outside a small window. And sometimes late in the night you strain your ear to hear the sorcerer playing mysterious melodies and chords on a pipe organ, and sometimes you might hear distant voices, hoping for your freedom, but you are still immobilized in a darkened cell deep beneath the castle, forgotten probably and left to rot. That's my interpretation of a scene of what this albums atmosphere portrays, desolation and despair. This album feels like shackles, chaining you down, never seeing the light of day, only the starlit night.
The vocals on this album done by Robert Measles help portray a sense of desolation and loneliness quite well, as his voice sounds so far away and sorrowful : another prisoner in another section of the dungeon, crying out his laments of despair and stories of strange things he has seen, forever doomed to remain chained up, desperately clinging to his memories of past freedom. He even sounds like the distant wailing of a ghost at times, such as in "Demoniac City". It seems Robert prefers to stay most of the time at the lower end of his range, he never really goes that high like Ozzy, but lower and more ghostly than Scott Weinrich.
The riffing/guitars on this album however, are the real spectacle of this album. These riffs aren't the fast, crazy, thrashing madness that characterized other songs at the time like "Metal Thrashing Mad" or "A Lesson in Violence" . Black Hole went down a different road, creating instead mysterious, gloomy, meandering melody lines. Instead of the "denim and leather" attitude that characterized many bands, Black Hole's riffs feel like walking alone through a darkened grave yard. Or like being trapped in dungeon, such as the scene I described earlier. Anything to do with darkness or despair would do, really. The fastest Black Hole gets is in "Demoniac City", with at parts is fast enough to pass as a mid paced thrash song. Coincidentally (or not), this happens to be one of the heaviest songs on the album.
You don't really hear pipe organs in metal that often, or for that matter any form of music really. However in every song on here, there are glimpses of an organ or pipe organ, which really adds to the mysterious atmosphere that this band has going. This ties in with the sorcerer playing the organ that I mentioned earlier, the murky chords and melody lines. A lot of times it is not real easy to pick out necessarily, as it is kind of low in the mix, but if you pay attention carefully you can hear the warped, twisted chord progressions that are played sometimes behind the guitar lines.
Even though this album is pretty obscure, it is worth getting if you can find it, as this is a masterpiece of atmospheric doom metal. The way everything just fits together on this album really proves to be dark and mysterious (am I using that word to much?) slab of doom metal done right, unlike some doom metal which can get quite boring at times.
- heavymetalrulez, May 4th, 2009