DORMANT INFERNO/DIONYSUS - Beyond Forgotten Shores
June 12, 2015, 8 years ago
(Transcending Obscurity India)
It's not every day you see a split of doom bands from India and Pakistan, but so it goes with Beyond Forgotten Shores, Mumbai's Dormant Inferno kicking off this nice and concise (37 minutes) split album with authority, which makes sense as they've been championing the genre in India for a while. And it's a surprisingly upbeat affair, the band rockin' like mid-era Amorphis at points, although they also take things low and slow at times. But it never gets oppressive, the band managing to keep the mood upbeat even when the tunes aren't; couple it with a nice thick production, and it works.
Dionysus' production is disappointing and the band is a bit more rough around the edges, but the tunes are good, taking a similar approach to doom that Dormant Inferno did: I'm thinking of some of the cool upbeat-doom tunes from Relapse bands back in the day, Morgion and Amorphis (who I've never called a doom band until this review, and still don't think they're a doom band, but work with me here) springing to mind, and although the vocals are screaming-guy sludge, the vibe is pleasantly old-school trad metal at times. The music itself sticks to doom conventions, but both bands here play with enough different sub-genre conventions to keep it interesting, Dionysus even throwing in some energetic blast beats for good measure.
