Album: Orange Goblin, A Eulogy For the Damned
Label: Candlelight
Release: February 14, 2012
Tracks:
1. Red Tide Rising
2. Stand for Something
3. Acid Trial
4. The Filthy & the Few
5. Save Me from Myself
6. The Fog
7. Return to Mars
8. Death of Aquarius
9. The Bishop’s Wolf
10.A Eulogy for the Damned
Orange Goblin has always been one of those bands for me that I absolutely know I should like more than I do. They’ve been around since 1995 and have made quite a name for themselves in the stoner metal scene over the years. While each of their previous six albums have had many fantastic moments, they also tend to have a dud here or there and thus I’d never found them to be terribly consistent. However, there’s something to be said for the fact that I continue to go back to them every now and again with high hopes each time I listen.
Enter A Eulogy For the Damned, their first album in five long years. While they’ve never exactly been mellow dudes, the break seems to have provided them with some great aggression and energy this time around. And consistency is no longer an issue. Except for a moment here and there, Eulogy very much rocks from start to finish.
Moreso than any other album they’ve done, there’s a higher rock quotient than metal present. You can especially hear that in “Save Me From Myself” with its radio ready melodic breakdown and harmony vocals. There’s a good mix of the rock and stoner metal throughout the record though. There are moments like in “Acid Trial” that they simply downtune and hit you over the head with heaviness. But “The Filthy & the Few” speeds up and becomes a rockin’ riff fest. The only moment of the record that is odd for me is the seven minute title track ending the disc. There’s four minutes in the middle that are simply fantastic, surrounded by a minute-and-a-half of slop on either side. The mellow intro is a bit of a mess but it slides right into some of the heaviest rocking they’ve ever put on disc with a riff in the chorus that sounds somewhere between Clutch and Velvet Revolver. The song repeats itself way too long at the end and includes an awkward fade out but in between it’s awesome.
Overall, their first record for Candlelight is pretty damn fantastic. Rockin’, riff-tastic and possibly the best record from start to finish that they’ve released yet.
“Red Tide Rising”
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