Review of Reverend Bizarre - Harbinger of Metal

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Huh, who?, what? Where? (Wipes drool from face and peels face off of the keyboard)

The last thing I remember was throwing in the Reverend Bizarre album Harbinger of Metal. One hour and 14 minutes later, my eyes are encrusted with sleep boogers, my mouth is sealed shut with saliva and I've pissed my pants.

Well that’s what I get for listening to this doomy of the doomiest, doom laden, doom fest and ultimate slab of doom album. Pure sonic monotony culling from classic Sabbath, Cathedral (pre-LSD days), Candlemass with a hint of stoner sludge, Reverend Bizarre are as lethargic as a depressed obese sloth on barbiturates. With songs clocking in at 20, 18, 13 and 12 minutes, don’t expect your pulse to go over 60 beats per minute, my pulse in fact wavered around 12 for the album’s entirety. Deep space travel should be possible with this album, as I think they should give this album to astronauts to induce hyper sleep, as it slows down the body’s functions to a near comatose state. That’s not to say this album is bad, as by its genre default, it wants to be as brain numbingly slow as possible and it succeeds, it’s just not really my thing. I prefer my doom slightly less devoid of character, rather than the no doubt drug induced prolonged haze this album seems to be ripe for.

That being said there is some suitably heavy, groaning riffs and snail like grooves, drawn out to absurd lengths that fans of the genre will enjoy, all rendered with the expected low end hum. At the 13 minute mark of “From The Void”, waves of sheer sonic weight will bludgeon you, but only after you tolerate a 5 minute drum solo.

Most of the album has the normal Sabbathy crawl, often building into something a little gutsier, but I never felt sonically crushed as say with Buried at Sea, or swept away like While Heaven Wept, instead a vast state of lethargy overwhelmed me. In part aided by the album sparse vocals, as a dreamy clean 70’s croon is normally utilized, the atmosphere is almost psychedelically doomy. I imagine this to be the background music as some dreadlocked white dude appears through a bead curtain into a smoky blacklight lit room to sell you mushrooms, while persons in various state of narcotic laced undress sprawl among the beanbag littered floor. The hazy instrumental “Into the Realm of Magical Entertainment”, enforces this trippy, metal nirvana, and that may appeal too many of you.

As the drawn out synth laced notes of “Dunkelheit” drone from my headphones, the effect is similar to having each one of Anna Nicole Smith’s breasts stapled to my eyelids (although in reality I wouldn’t not mind that scenario); they suddenly become uncontrollably heavy and I begin to drool.

Not an album I will be returning too, but obviously a solid example of the genre that those with alternate reality dispositions may enjoy. Me? I don’t enjoy having unaccounted for hours of my life go missing into the depths of sludge filled void.

Harbinger of Naps?

Release Details

Reverend Bizarre

Harbinger of Metal

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