Ramesses is a band I'm not entirely familiar with, however I love the band. With sludge, doom and psychedelic metal at their peaks right now, it's no wonder many new bands are coming around. Bands like Struck by Lightning and Ramesses are popping up all over the metal radar, and it's a pleasure to hear new talent. Ramesses isn't technically a "new" band, but as they haven't been around for too terribly long, I still consider them relatively new.

I first heard of Ramesses after asking a friend of mine who loves sludge and doom metal for recommendations on the genres. The first band he said was Ramesses, followed by Acid Witch. I can say that Ramesses was a great addition to the music I listen to, and easily snaked its way into my top 50 bands of all time. This new record just proves that they can do so much with their music and it's an amazing thing to see a band hit sounds reminiscent of Electric Wizard, Acid Bath, Eyehategod and early Doom. I was extremely impressed with the new record.

It starts off with a faster paced track then the rest of the album follows, but it's probably one of the better tracks on the album. The drums focus on a simplistic blues beat and follow a progressive fill. It's mostly like many of the other drums in doom metal. In fact I think drums in doom metal is the weak point. The only band that astounds me in doom is Minsk. To be honest the music is pretty weak, but it fits perfectly. I would say that even though you may not like the music that Ramesses play, you can at least give them the fact that they are always on time with one another. It's relatively hard to find bands like that these days.

The Vocals follow both blues oriented doom and death oriented doom, being that they hit growls and melodic vocals. In fact, the track, "Terrasaw" uses the Acid Bath technique with growling over the singing. It's a surreal sound to the music. Many of the songs flow together, so the record can be boring at times, but I still think it fits the mood to chill out and listen to with a few friends, especially if those friends love doom metal.

Highlights: Iron Crow, Black Hash Mass, Take the Curse, Another Skeleton