LP Review: "Morphine Moonshine" by Demonsmoke

Morphine Moonshine

Let's take the time to apologize for the lateness of this particular review. Demonsmoke originally contacted me a few months back about their track, Spewing Disgust, and it was streamed on Glacially Musical.

It was truly a great song in my eyes and it made me really anticipate my review of this album. Unfortunately for your friend and humble narrator, technical issues have really gotten in the way of writing up this particular album, and this review is being published after the record's release.

My PC was upgraded to a new computer with a sidecar hard drive in order to save space and be able to work faster. Well, after the screen on my old on was ruined by my cats last  year, it was only a matter of time for this upgrade to happen, but it's taken awhile to finally get off my bum and do it.

Supposedly, moving my iTunes library over to the external hard drive was supposed to only be a matter of clicks, but as it turns out, it's been much more of a pain in the butt than that. So, I'm late getting to things.

Demonsmoke

Now, do not let my lateness speak to the quality of this record.

Frankly, I only got to listening to it today and that's a problem.

To start off, what is there to love about this record? In a word, everything.

This album is everything that we love about fuzzed out doom metal or fuzzed out stoner metal, however you personally categorize it.

It's only lacking one thing, subtlety. Demonsmoke will start out punching you in the face.

It flows like a river.

Just when it starts to get too punishing, they dial back the intensity. Not leaving it there, they slowly start to ramp it back up again. This album is a lesson on how to arrange your songs. Again, the flow on this disc could cut out a new Grand Canyon given the right amount of time.

It's not precisely doom metal and it's not precisely psychedelic. It hovers between pleasingly ugly and disturbingly beautiful. The vocals are harsh and there's nothing inspired by Ozzy anywhere to be found.

The grooves are solid gold.

A bit more guitar melody would've put this album up against anything in the Stoner/Doom genre in the past five years, but we can all settle with a great album.

It's easy to lose sight of the fact that Morphine Moonshine is a debut album. The song craft, the album craft, and the production are all top notch.

It's a good time full of rusty guitar strings and pained vocals.

Release: Out Now
Genre: Doom Metal
Label: DIY
Formats: Digital/Cassette
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