ORCHID - Capricorn CD
Doom Dealer/The Church Within Records
Genre: Doom
Rating: 5/5
ORCHID Bloody ORCHID? Right now there's hundreds of guys in SABBATH cover bands scratching their heads and asking themselves "Fuck why didn't we think of this". For those of you who've been blasting this band's Through the Devil's Doorway CDEP for over a year now, I was listening to it again today, the four piece from California are still knee deep in everything 70's era SABBATH. Capricorn, their debut full length, does show some progression from their almighty four song release. How much you ask? Well imagine you're a musician locked in a room for a month with the first six Ozzy era SABBATH LPs being piped in over the sound system twenty four hours a day. What would your music writing be like afterwards? Yeah that's Capricorn essentially without the Geezer and Ward contributions. It's actually funny that a band like this so unashamed in their paint by the numbers influence actually sounds great but has not received any backlash from critics. Actually I think unashamed is putting it lightly especially with song titles like "Eyes Behind the Wall", "Black Funeral", "Masters of It All" and "Electric Father".
I think it's because of Dio's death that the once jaded people are now giving Ozzy a reprieve, not him personally of course but the Ozzy era SABBATH, which has been played to death. In this band's case Theo Mindell sounds like a young Ozzy and Mark Thomas Baker plays like Tony Iomni was his personal guitar teacher. Anyone who says ORCHID are something more than SABBATH clones is a liar. They are clones, copycats and thieves but it just sounds so good. The best part about listening to this is guessing what SABBATH songs the riffs were lifted from. I'll spoil the fun by saying "Black Funeral" is "Behind the Wall of Sleep" and "Down into the Earth" is "Into the Void", cowbell included. The rest I know as well but you'll have to figure it out on your own. It's just fuckin amazing and you really don't wanna pull out the originals. The only difference between this new one and their CDEP is that the songs on here, nine of em, are longer.
The title cut is the shortest song on here and actually the only bad cut. It's weak because for the first time the band strays from the template. The band even adds some mid-song keyboard enhanced interludes on a few cuts. These guys have no scruples what so ever. They even stole their logo style from THE SWORD. You know those Texans are pissed, pissed I tell you because with this full length ORCHID have moved beyond any hipster tags. THE SWORD have three releases out and they're still covered with that hipster tag like it was leprosy. OK now to ORCHID's credit there are times during the longer cuts where they do show some fresh ideas but it's so few that it doesn't ruin the experience. Capricorn is going to be on my year end favorite's list. Nuff Said.
Label: http://www.doom-dealer.de/
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/orchidsf
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