BLOOD CEREMONY — Lord Of Misrule (review)

BLOOD CEREMONY — Lord Of Misrule album cover Album · 2016 · Heavy Psych Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
666sharon666
As strange as it may sound to write this on a metal site, Canada's Blood Ceremony seem to be going from strength to strength since taking their music in a less metallic direction compared to their first two albums. While I do think that both the self-titled debut and Living with the Ancients are excellent albums, previous offering The Eldritch Dark quickly became my favourite Blood Ceremony album. That is at least until fourth album Lord of Misrule came along.

Most people seem to be saying that Lord of Misrule is Blood Ceremony's complete departure from their doom metal roots but I can't agree with that for two reasons. Firstly as I see it that already happened on The Eldritch Dark and secondly there's actually several notable doom influenced sections in the tracks here, especially the first song, The Devil's Widow.

One thing that is definitely different on this album is the more back seat presence of Alia O'Brien's organ, which gives the album a different identity to The Eldritch Dark, though the band's style is otherwise unmistakable with plenty of great riffs from Sean Kennedy and of course great vocals and flute work from Alia. The song's themselves are among Blood Ceremony's most addictive and catchy and unashamedly steeped in their love of 60's/70's psych and prog rock. They are like a band out of time in many ways and yet with Lord of Misrule have produced an early gem for 2016, one that I'm wondering if any band is going to be able to better before the year's end.
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more than 2 years ago
Will be checking this one out. Sounds interesting.
Unitron wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Great review, still need to listen to this and the last one.
Nightfly wrote:
more than 2 years ago
A great album - will be interesting to see where they go next.
666sharon666 wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Thanks. It definitely deserves it. Hope we can make it five.
adg211288 wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Fourth five star review in a row for this masterpiece. :) Great review Nicole.

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