CRESTFALLEN QUEEN - Queen of Swords
The Church Within Records
Warning, there's prog rock ahead so proceed with caution. More to the point this is doom with certain aspects of prog rock from the 70's. Mainly that's placing many arrangements in a long song to make it one epic piece. Add to that certain non-metal or doom sound structures. Now for you regular readers of SFM666 (and frankly who isn't) you know I don't dabble much at all with prog metal acts. The reason why is that I grew up in the 70's when prog rock was huge. I'm still a fan of those bands, in that I'll get in a mood and break out some ELP, YES or KING CRIMSON. The problem with metal acts getting into prog is that they haven't learned the song writing craft to keep things interesting within an eight to ten minute song length.
Which brings us to CRESTFALLEN QUEEN a five piece act out of Stuttgart, Germany. I don't usually do good points versus bad points reviews but in this band's case I will. So first good point is that their vocalist, this woman, is damm good. She's got this commanding soulful vocal style which conjures up visions of a warrior woman. She also adds in some harsh blackened style vocals as well. The bad point is that she's not singing enough. You've got a great vocalist and she's probably standing in the back playing the keyboards which you really don't hear much of. Her best performance is on "Eurydice's Lullaby"
Next up out of the six cuts on here you've got two worthless instrumentals, one's a two minute plus opener and the second sits in the middle. That's a sad bad point as well as a waste of space. Good point, "Ghost Warriors" with it's SABBATH-ian influence. Bad point, SABBATH would have cut it shorter than it's nine plus minute time line. Also as far as decent prog influenced doom goes, the title track probably covers that base well. "Lethean Bed", which has an eerie vibe also works well in a WINDHAND sort of way.
In the end if I was a pothead instead of a hop-head I'd be sitting on my back deck blasting this through the speakers while kicked back in a chair. Unfortunately the last time I got high on pot was probably before some of you readers were conceived. As far as my neighbors go with me blasting music outside, Fuck Them! It's not that loud when I blast it anyway so stop calling the cops. Sound-wise what we have here is a decent release, after multiple listens and some beers on the back deck. This is their debut full length so I'd expect the next one to be not so cliche.
http://www.doom-dealer.com/sites/start.htm
https://crestfallenqueen.bandcamp.com/album/queen-of-swords
https://www.facebook.com/CrestfallenQueen/
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