BLOOD CEREMONY — Living With the Ancients (review)

BLOOD CEREMONY — Living With the Ancients album cover

Album · 2011 · Traditional Doom Metal

4.5/5 · 2011-05-09
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Living With the Ancients is the second album from Blood Ceremony, a band that brings forth a real retro sound in their music that manages to sound like a cross between the heavy guitar tones of early Black Sabbath and the flute of Jethro Tull with a good dose of psychedelic rock thrown in for good measure, all is topped off with a great female vocal.

Although they are often considered as doom metal, Blood Ceremony comes across to have more in common with classic rock bands, although they’re a bit heavier. Opening track The Great God Pan features great rocking guitar riffs from Sean Kennedy, nicely broken up with a lead line. Vocalist Alia O'Brien sets a high standard for exceptional performing here which is maintained throughout the record. After a seemingly standard start to the track the band suddenly throws everything up in the air with the first appearance of some psychedelic organ sounds, which also gives the album its first sort of doom feel but it’s very minuscule within the overall sound. Lead guitar work is used well in a long drawn out instrumental section that lasts until the tracks completion, with the abrupt change giving Blood Ceremony a somewhat progressive feel to them.

The second track, Coven Tree, is a completely different affair to the first, as this is where the flute comes into play. The flute parts play a very important part in the sound of Living With the Ancients, as it is used often in the place where other bands may have included a lead guitar line. Here the flute is used to create a very much folk feel to the track. I like the atmosphere it creates as well, as it has a real air of sadness to it, but with a few hints of happiness as well.

It’s very clear that even just two tracks in that Blood Ceremony’s Living With the Ancients is going to be an album that is difficult to accurately tag, as there’s a lot of different elements in the music here, though the more I listen to this the less I get the association with doom metal, though it certainly has its moments such as My Demon Brother and Oliver Haddo. If I were to put it in any metal genre it would be folk metal though, mainly because of that flute which dominates many of the tracks, such as Coven Tree and The Hermit, but also Night of Augury, which retains the same sort of folk feel by use of the usually psychedelic sounding organ, although like The Great God Pan before it, this one has an abrupt change of pace and turns into full on psychedelic rock, with some quite haunting sounds that kind of remind me of Pink Floyd in another of the band’s long drawn out instrumental sections. Some more folksy flutes are heard in the epic final track, Daughter of the Sun, which is easily one of, if not the best on the entire album.

For the most part I’d consider this a psychedelic/progressive rock release, which tracks such as Morning of the Magicians firmly establish. It is borderline being metal because the guitars are generally heavy, but as I hinted at above, it’s more metal in a retro, Black Sabbath-y sort of sense than it is a modern sense, which is where I guess the doom association comes from. No matter what direction the band takes a track in though, it remains strong, and Living With the Ancients is overall a great and highly recommendable release. Fans of retro sounds are especially advised to check this one out!

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven, scoring 8.8/10)