LP Review: "III" by Herem

III

As someone who's overly literal, the idea of words being used outside of their definitions is something that's often hard for me to understand.

In order to make up for this deficiency, I study etymology as best that I can. It's often hard to understand and explain a colloquialism to my daughter without knowing where it came from.

Think about the, now fairly antiquated phrase, letting the cat out of the bag. There was a scam where people tried to sell a cat in a bag as a suckling pig, but opening the sack, the cat would be let out of the bag, ergo, hidden facts would be revealed. (NOTE: Snopes rejects this...but it's a cool story.)

Now, another term is fast talker. Why do people "talk fast?" Obviously the phrase doesn't literally mean one who's speaking quickly, but one who's speaking deceptively.

Herem

Think about it as someone speaking fast or a band playing quickly. An old axiom of mine is that it's harder to make slower music interesting than it is fast music.

In this case, the fast talkers can get by with doing a whole lot less.

Herem is anything but fast.

III is a blackened doom masterpiece. First of all, I had to ask if Blackened Doom Metal was a thing.

Apparently, anybody can just add black to anything at any given time now, but this album is really interesting.

It sounds like Black Sabbath suffering from Stockholm Syndrome after being kidnapped by Mayhem and Pantera. The vocals are that classic black metal, with a few surprises.

The music though, it's pure old school doom metal through and through, but with a few curvy riffs Iommi wouldn't have ever let fly.

III is an album for those with an adventurous heart, don't let it pass you by.

Release: 1/13/17 (internationally)
Genre: Blackened Doom Metal
Label: Inverse Records
Formats: Digital
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