Blood Ceremony – Living With The Ancients (2011) [Rise Above] // Grade: D

Imagine Black Sabbath and Heart or maybe even Jethro Tull had a bastard lovechild during a séance at Anton Lavey’s house. That’s the closest I can get to describing the sounds that Blood Ceremony have cultivated in their new album, Living With The Ancients. Part NWOBHM, part 70′s psych rock, Blood Ceremony mixes in a fatal dose of occult-themed lyrics with the sounds of rock’s past.

Why is it fatal? Partially because of the vocals. While Blood Ceremony’s debut album received great accolades, I feel like much of the hype was unwarranted. Sure, there aren’t a lot of female-fronted doom metal acts out there but that doesn’t mean they deserve a gold star on default. Where are the vocal ranges? I wanna hear her actually sing, not just lay down 50-minutes of mono-tone vocals. At some points, they’re almost just lazy.

This angers me. So much potential for another great doom metal band is lost. “The Great God Pan” builds with a lot of potential and immediately, the sounds are overturned by a lot of emphasis on vocals. We’ve got a huge influence from the 70′s here and the female lead is just so weak. There’s no power in her vocal range and all of the Satanic and Pagan references in the world can’t help her. Where’s the emotion lady?

“Coven Tree” brings in flutes to put the occultly folky theme over the top and if that wasn’t enough to drive you back to the round table, there’s “The Hermit”. Enough with the fucking flutes ok? It’s great that you were in your highschool band but leave it out! Here I was thinking this was about as bad as it could get but then a tambourine comes in to ruin the party. With all these attempts to “age” the band, they still come off sounding like a washed-up Wino side-project, without the powerful vocals. “My Demon Brother” comes across as an homage to Hammer Films and other British horror. A sound clip mentions the Devil and Beelzebub and we’re supposed to get scared or something?

Listen to Electric Wizard “Black Mass” and tell me how Blood Ceremony even creates an ounce of emotion in their music. The rest of the album kinda flops like hippie footwear. More flutes, less variance and “Morning of the Magicians” is boring. For their one decent track, put on “Oliver Haddo”. It’s pure Sabbath worship. More sound clips, organs come in and the riffs are tolerable and the vocals carry a little bit more variance. The last two full-tracks are “Night of Augury” and the 10-minute rock ballad “Daughter of the Sun” with a god-awful minstrel track “The Witch’s Dance” sandwiched in between.

It’s a huge let down when I come across an album like Living With The Ancients. It has all the potential to be a great album. Occult-themed lyrics, check. Sound clips from horror movies, check. Female front, check. But they had to go and fuck it all up. Maybe I’m being too hard here but I am not impressed. Pass on this and go listen to Candlemass or Witchfinder General.

- Prolly