BLACK OATH - Litanies in the Dark
Terror from Hell Records
If you know your epic doom than Italy's BLACK OATH are not new to your ears. Their To Below and Beyond full length from 2015 is an unheralded classic in my book. And yet it also brought these Italians to the forefront of the whole doom scene after six years plugging away. I'd also say 2013's Ov Qliphoth and Darkness was a fine piece of work as well. So this little four song EP is definitely for fans only since none of this is new material.
Litanies in the Dark is a four song comp of old cuts from 2012 - 2015 never released before. Obviously this is some sort of holdover ploy till the band gets their next full length out in like ah a year? So this bone they're throwing out are basically leftovers. First song, "From Here" is classic epic doom with a familiar Sabbath-esque quality to it. TH's tenor vocals, along with BR's Iomni style riffing, is what brought me to liking this band few years back. Great cut reminiscent of their full length stuff.
"Funeral Alchemy" is obviously a total throwaway track even though it has the keyboardist from ABYSMAL GRIEF on session. Except for the Gregorian like choir background chants this is an instrumental. The third cut "Reincarnation Of The Highway Cavalier" is a tribute to Terry Jones of PAGAN ALTAR who passed away in 2015. BLACK OATH takes two PAGAN ALTAR's songs off of their Time Lord EP and weaves them together. “Reincarnation", which is basically a ballad, begins and the melodic rocker “Highway Cavalier" ends it. It's decent enough.
The forth and final cut, "A Song To Die With" is another instrumental, very short and kinda boring with a simple trudgy riff repeated with keyboards again in the background. Yeah that's a throwaway as well. The bottom line is that the band or whoever was making the decisions should have left all of this alone except for the first track of course. Or maybe they could've tacked it onto their next CD? Great band, I look forward to their next full length but this is for collectors only.
Rating: 2/5
http://www.tfhrecords.com/terrorfromhell/
https://www.facebook.com/blackoathcurse/?fref=ts
https://blackoath666.bandcamp.com/album/litanies-in-the-dark
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