siLLy puPPy
For the most part this debut album by the Los Angeles based ICON OF PHOBOS is blackened doom metal with slow undulating riffage but other than the tempo this is clearly in the black metal domain. This band really doesn't reinvent the wheel or bring much new to either the doom or the black side of metal, but what it lacks in creativity it delivers in performance. In fact not only is the album cover a blatant reworking of Paracletus by Deathspell Omega, but a lot of the black metal side of their music is also derivative of them especially in the guitar department.
So basically this is a mixed bag for me. Everything is played really well in the vain of some seriously good second wave black metal with doom tempos. The production is a nice balance of raw and polished and Arioch nails the Mikko Aspa vocal thing quite well. In short, this is far from original but very well done and even though it's not gonna go onto the top of my list of albums to listen to frequently I can see myself throwing this on every now and again because it's just different enough but barely.