Green Druid – Ashen Blood – Album Review

Executed poorly and doom metal can be a laborious chore to listen to, done correctly and doom can be a slow motion, malevolent aural eargasm of unfathomable proportions! Fortunately for us then, Colorado’s Green Druid fall into the latter camp, with the release of their debut album, Ashen Blood, proving particularly powerful.

It should be noted that anyone feeling a tad down in the dumps after the ‘accesibility’ of the last Electric Wizard release should have their spirits lifted by this brute of an album. Consisting of five lengthy tracks (we’re still not sure how to classify the closing “Ritual Sacrifice”), this album has everything you demand from a doom album.

From music that, for the most part, moves as slowly as a one legged Diplodocus on a sleeping pill binge – with each protracted chord feeling like it has been summoned forth from some Lovecraftian primordial swamp – to vocalist Chris McLaughlin’s Ozzy like delivery, Ashen Blood is certainly no easy listen.

With the centrepiece of Ashen Blood being the gargantuan “Cursed Blood” – a track which ebbs and flows over eighteen gruelling minutes – Green Druid don’t like to rush things, with the shortest song coming in at a whopping eight and a half minutes! “Rebirth”, on the other hand, is as lively as these lads get and should surely get the dandruff flying and the old neck muscles snapping!

If it’s an instant hit of adrenaline you need from your music then Ashen Blood is definitely not the album for you. However, if you are prepared to invest your time in this album then there is a lot to admire……but be warned, Ashen Blood is for serious doom heads only. 8/10

Ashen Blood is available now via Earache Records!