Label- RidingEasy
Release Date - 25 February 2022
Words- Chris Fletcher
Gothenburg trio Firebreather are back with their third full length album ‘Dwell in the Fog’. The second album released on Riding Easy records and first with new bassist Nicklas Hellqvist, this is around forty minutes of groove that flows from your speakers with the thick nature of lava, full of hummable riffs and reverberating drum beats for you to sink into.
Album opener ‘Kiss of Your Blade’ sets the stall out early, bursting out of the gate with a tasting menu of all the elements the band has to offer. The guitar work on this track is reminiscent of Mastodon, which can also be noted throughout various points on the record. The third single released from the album, ‘Sorrow’, shows how adept the band are at building momentum within tracks, before rewarding you with a guitar solo that cuts through the fuzz in an expertly crafted way. What you have here is six tracks of good quality doom that follows a similar blueprint without ever disappointing.
Overall ‘Dwell in the Fog’ is a fitting name for the album. The droning, rumbling low end that characterises the majority of these tracks manages to create a suffocating atmosphere, leaving you feeling surrounded in the way that all the best doom metal manages to. With riffs akin to those of High on Fire, only with a focus more on heft than speed, fans of bands as varied as Conan and Khemmis should be able to find something here.
If there is one gripe with the record it would be with the production. The vocals - whilst perfectly audible - could do with being a bit higher in the mix, however as the centerpiece of the album are the lumbering riffs, such small issues do not detract much from what is a fine example of this type of doom metal.
Whilst the band's second album ‘Under a Blood Moon’ displayed a band with a lot of potential, this record showcases that they are beginning to realise it. The three singles released prior to the album should be enough to get anybody immersed in this type of music interested, but in truth this album is a cathartic journey that is best experienced in full. Come get lost in the fog.
8/10
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