Album Review: "Our Cult Continues!" by Cardinals Folly

Our Cult Continues!

I have a gift for being able to tell if I'm going to be interested in a record when I hear the name or see the cover.

Or I'm a closed minded so and so.

Well, based on the name, the title, and the cover, I was interested in hearing this record. That in and of itself brought up a whole different can of worms that just had to be picked through.

Listening to this album made me think stoner metal, but their bio lists them as Doom Metal. Frankly, I'm not entirely certain I know what the difference between these two closely related sub-genres is.

If you do know, please hit it in the comments. A point by point with references to significant artists and songs should do well enough.

Here's what I can tell you....whatever you want to call it, be it Stoner Metal or Doom Metal, or whatever, I thinthink that it's the true 2nd Generation of metal and these boys from Finland, sure have it figured out.

Cardinals Folly

Stoner or Doom....well, the Finns here list themselves as Doom Metal, so we'll go with that, even if I cannot find a discernible difference in the music.

The guitars and bass are fuzzy. They're spacey. They're in and out of phase the whole time.

The music chugs along. Marching. Praying. Never slowing down. The speeds change, but they never slow down, they must continue.

I've heard other albums that sound like musical parades, but this album is a musical death march.

By the second or third song, the listener can hear the fatigue in the chords, the vocals, and the drums. This music isn't a labor of love, it's a plain labor.

The labor makes the songs ooze with feeling, power, and need.

The guitars themselves, well they're fuzzy, spaced out, etc....kind of like Black Sabbath on Angel Dust. The band itself sounds like a bone saw. The tempo begins slowly and slowly builds up until the limb is gone and the song is over.

The vocals sound accented, which adds to the other worldly timbre they've created, at least to my American ears.

If we're going to pinpoint Cardinals Folly, they fall somewhere between Electric Wizard and Ghost. If I'm either Stoner or Doom metal, that's the company I wish to keep.

My words are paltry compared to the chords. Listen to them instead of me.

Release: 8/19/14
Genre: Metal, Doom Metal
Label: Shadow Kingdom Records
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