Band : Orthodox
Album Title : Baal
Label : Alone Records
Distributor :
Release Date : 2011
Review : CD

For the insiders : Anecdote at Roadburn 2007 , Me : “High, do you play here as well” Just a normal, but very nice guy, :“Yeah I am the bass player of Orthodox”  Me again :”Oh, I didn’t recognize you”.

Fusing together genres such as doom, psychedelia, free-jazz and krautrock Orthodox have made a name for themselves.. Covering an assortment of different sounds and moods Baal is the most twisted doom oriented and accessible album in Orthodox’ varied catalogue. Unlike a lot of doom bands Orthodox are not afraid to experiment. Many segments of this CD should be pleasant, but this Spanish threesome have the tendency to seemingly insert notes that are just off enough to create uneasiness and tension. Adding to this are the lyrics, which are strange and morbid epic tales They mesh well with the music, and are always delivered in an appropriate  voice.They are one of a handful of bands today creating music that really scares people. It's in their name. It's in their lyrics. It's in in their  album art. It's in the ultra heavy, feedback soaked grooves that fill their albums from start to finish.

The album contains one long piece “Abrase la tierra” that hardly qualify as a song, containing its fair share of noise, disoriented and frightened passages. However, the songs “Alto padre”, “Taurus”, “Iatromantis” and “Main Ba’al” don’t go through a variety of tempo and style changes, but Orthodox does an excellent job of building and maintaining a suffocating atmosphere ending on the darkest possible note.

Like their first Gran Poder those of you who can enjoy volcanic bashings of audio tormented stripped-down extreme doom should definitely check this one out.

90/100

Cosmicmasseur.