Album Review: "Grim Love" by Grim Van Doom

Grim Love

Music is the great healer and it always stirs a memory or seven.

Just hearing the name of a metal sub-genre, like Doom Metal, will immediately open all sorts of locked doors in my mind.

I will then begin to reminisce over several different times in my life. Like once talking about Black Sabbath on the side of a small pond fishing, and how we decided they were more Acid Rock than Heavy Metal.

You have to remember that this was before the factioning of heavy metal. During these days, it was just heavy metal. Thrash Metal existed of course, but it hadn't made it into the lexicon yet.

Today's reviewee is Grim Van Doom all the way from Germany. As our friend and spiritual leader, Bender B. Rodriguez would say, Grim Van Doom transcends genres as they reinvent them.

Grim Van Doom

Grim Van Doom is listed as a doom metal band, at least according to their label, but that doesn't really describe them.

Doom Metal is, well, the easy listening of the metal sub-genre and Grim Van Doom is far, far from that.

They pound. They grind. Of course, they also groove.

They have created a sound that's so thick, so sludgy, I bet it would turn 5W-40 Motor Oil into diesel fuel with prolonged exposure.

The songs are simple in their structure, but complex in their writing. Like the mighty Sabbath, these songs are made up of about 800 different parts. Never will you be wowed by their speed, but their lack of it is certainly a bit awe inspiring.

They're slow, but never plodding. Deliberate and heavy. These songs are played at the just the right speed.

Release: 9/11/15
Genre: Doom Metal
Label: WOOAAARGH
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