Band: The Wounded Kings
Title: The Shadow Over Atlantis
Label: I Hate Records
Distribution: Sure Shot Worx
Release date: 11/01/2010
Review: CD

The Wounded Kings are a UK-based formation, formed about five years ago (as a duo, by the way, having become a ‘real’ band in mean time). In 2008, the formation recorded a first full length, Embrace Of The Narrow House, which brought an eerie and haunting form of mesmerizing Doom.
The Shadow Over Atlantis, the second full length studio album, lasts for 41:34 minutes and more or less goes on in the vein of the debut. The six creations still stand for a very icy, obscure, occult and horrific form of psychedelic Doom. As from the first song, The Swirling Mist, my mind dwells into Cathedral-alike spheres, or better, Cathedral’s Forest Of Equilibrium-era. Several tracks exhale the same desolate and suffocating atmosphere. The colossal hymns just define a most sulphuric and bleak infernal soundtrack…
Other bands that sometimes come to mind are, for example, Saint Vitus, Church Of Misery, The Gates Of Slumber and Goatsnake, but The Wounded Kings add their own elements to these funereal (Abstract Spirit, Ahab, Urna etc) and ominous (Esoteric, Unearthly Trance, Void Of Silence etc) hymns.
The whole comes with an oppressing and rather raw sound; even the artwork looks mysterious and purgatorious.

94/100

Ivan Tibos.