DOOMDOGS: "Unleash the Truth"

Grooving stoner metal meets old school doom metal: this seems to be a common formula on Doomentia Records' roster lately, and Doomdogs' second full-length Unleash the Truth is no exception, unfortunately. Now why the hell is that unfortunate, one could ask, as the quality has remained at a quite high level so far. It's simple: There's been plenty of similar (identical?) material out there already, which is still reasonable, but when the album runs for over seventy minutes, it is way too much.

Whereas I greatly enjoyed Earthride's Something Wicked and Wolfhead's self-titled effort, Unleash the Truth doesn't quite convince me in the same way. Sound-wise, they've got it all here, a dirty low-end guitar sound reminiscent of a bass guitar, it sounds very good. There's a lot of fittingly muddy groove in the instrumentation, especially the drummer does an excellent job here. The vocals, however, are one of the things I'm not much into, but it's definitely a matter of personal opinion. To me, this kind of slightly-tongue-in-cheek clean delivery doesn't really work, unless it's Mastodon doing it.

The vocals aren't the end of everything, so that I'm still able to enjoy the songs, but the ultimate glitch of the album is indeed its length. The songs are relatively long, mostly around five and six minutes, and I find it a bit too long average as the songs are build upon just a few riffs. This is why it's not an easy task to sit through thirteen of this kind of songs in one listening session. Hence my favourite pieces on the album are the most deviant tracks: ”Legacy” is a sweet instrumental made of both acoustic and distortionless electric guitar chords and a flute. ”Magic of the Black Circle” is another strong one, a nocturnal and lurking piece of mesmerizing atmosphere. I also dig ”Mind Slayer” which almost borders on being proggy.

Thanks to the certain highlights, Unleash the Truth deserves a positive rating. Were the songs removed and compensated with another slew of basic stoner doom, I'd probably be bored to death, but luckily that is not the case here. Those reading this review must also remember that I'm not an expert in this genre at all, so true fanatics of the subgenre might find a lot more to enjoy from the album (whilst laughing at my inexperienced comments about it). Unleash the Truth has its moments, but next time around I'd prefer a little more concise and an abridged whole.

3 / 5