When it comes to rendering true traditional doom — like when it comes to flying with umbrellas or shutting down airports due to volcanic ash floated over from Iceland — there are some things the British just do better. Enter London outfit Serpent Venom, whose self-titled demo takes the post-St. Vitus doom that has made The Gates of Slumber catch on so well with their last couple albums and strips it down even further, offering three songs of pure Sabbathian darkness partnered with a ritualistic feel that most American bands (I won’t say all) fail to capture properly.

Of the three songs on the disc (all of which are available for listening on the band’s MySpace), not a one of them is under six and a half minutes, the shortest being “Under the Compass” at 6:28. Both “The Outsider” and “Four Walls of Solitude” — the place to start — top eight minutes, with the latter going all the way to 9:20. So, at nearly 24 minutes, Serpent Venom is a healthy cut of an EP, and the professional recording job only brings out even more the character and mission of the band. Each time guitarist Pete pulls a Dave Chandler-type note and holds it out before cycling through the riff again, it’s hard not to smile. His fuzz-caked lead tone is another highlight of the demo, when and where it comes up.

Vocalist Gaz (no, not Cathedral‘s guitarist; a different Gaz) gives a where-the-hell-did-he-come-from kind of performance, making me wonder in what bands he’s been hiding all this time. His voice has the perfect warble for this kind of doom and is set just far back enough in the mix to give a yelling-across-the-abyss feel. He mostly follows the melodies as laid out by the guitar, but it utterly capable in that regard and lacking nothing in either talent or knowing when to sit back and let the music take over. Each track winds up with an energy all its own, and the demo is one of the strongest I’ve heard in some time in its genre. I can’t imagine these dudes won’t be signed, say, by the time this post is finished, but in the meantime, they’re definitely worth keeping on the radar.

Tags: London, Serpent Venom, UK, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 1:40 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.