ALBUM REVIEW: Lord Dying – Mysterium Tremendum


You can’t fault Oregonian sludgesters Lord Dying for compromising on their band name. It’s so Doom-friendly, you could hang yourself off it, right after smoking the carpet because it might be made of hemp. Nor can you fault the title of their third album, Mysterium Tremendum (eOne), redolent, as it is, of harsh truths and cosmic indifference.

So, initially, it all goes rather well. Album opener ‘Envy Of The End’ pounces out at the listener with a fierce and crushing sound, guitars howling in despair, before suddenly segueing into a slower, more melancholic section just at the point the previous snarling could have got boring. Then it lurches back into throat ripping mode, like a tearful wolverine whose muse has just died, with a great hook or two.

At this point, your pulse must surely be rising. The rest of the album must be great, yeah? Well-lll-lll, bits of it are, but the true heart of the album is to be found in track two, ‘Tearing At The Fabric Of Consciousness’. Yes, it’s nicely melodic, and at times acoustic, with a nice acapella flourish. But it goes nowhere, and after a while, it outstays its welcome, like Julian Assange‘s crustiest wanking sock.

From that point on, and every time the rest of the album gets close to greatness, the meandering suddenly takes hold, as one of the interminable solos that also keep cropping up, to ever decreasing returns. One could almost make a drinking game out of it. There’s the album, rocking out – but oh! Here the tedium washes in, like the tide.

This is not to say the album lacks ideas, it just doesn’t have enough of them. And yet, from time to time, one can still hear the promise, like in track five, ‘Exploring Inward (An Unwelcome Passenger)’, which snarls and wails with confidence, but ultimately only reminds one of how good it could have been, rather than how good it was.

7 / 10

ALEXANDER HAY