Latest from this all female Swiss doom combo, who we had never heard before but are
digging a lot, their sound a blackened dirgey death doom, that slips easily from tarpit
creep to almost Sabbathy groove, to churning metallic pound with all sort of variation in
between, killer riffs, and a harsh raspy vokill (that can slip into a clean angelic croon).
The record begins with a bit of clean guitar, draped over what sounds like the crackle of a
fire burning, when the songs lurches to life, the riff is a slithery beast, driven by some
muscled pound, only to drift right back into a strange bit of psychedelic shimmer, all
muted buzz and ominously whispered vox, before the hammer falls, and the song bursts
back into motion, this time with haunting clean vocals beneath the churning riffage. The
follow up track begins lovely and lilting as well, but soon splinters into some filthy
slithery sludge, laced with some surprising melody, and some cool post rocky parts, and
an unexpectedly rocking second half. The rest of the record seems to shift freely
between, haunting minimalism, and brooding chugging bombast, notable exceptions
being the mostly mellow “Souls Colliding” which sounds more like slowcore than doom
really, even when it gets heavy, and near the end, there’s even some haunting lovely
violin, or the clean vocal driven “(You Are) The Mirror” which sounds more like L7 or Hole
but more doomy, the clean vocal harmonies a nice contrast to the downtuned chug and
churn.
But all of that is cast aside for the closer, a seriously abject slab of slow-mo sludge, with
some sick demonic vocal rasps, the track a deathmarch dirge, pounding away maniacally,
the bleak black pound only occasionally offset by cool clean almost chantlike vox, drifting
over the relentless crush, which soon sink into the mire, leaving the track to
return to its black murky malevolence.
http://aquariusrecords.org/bin/search.cgi?searchfield=keyword&search_string=SHEVER+
Rituals