It might be time to stop thinking of The Wounded Kings as traditional doom. On their third album since 2008, In the Chapel of the Black Hand (I Hate Records), the British outfit have all but completely grown past their earlier connections to the doom of yore – if there are any similarities between the thorough and encompassing atmospheres of these four tracks (really three and one well-placed interlude) and the likes of ‘80s and ‘90s doomers, it’s in the cultish atmospheres The Wounded Kings present, and that can be traced further back to ‘70s Hammer Horror and freak folk. Make no mistake, The Wounded Kings are doomed on In the Chapel of the Black Hand – perhaps even the most doomed they’ve yet been, which anyone who heard last year’s stellar The Shadow Over Atlantis or their An Introduction to the Black Arts split with Virginian volume mongers Cough will tell you is no easy feat – but the drive of the record is thinking forward rather than paying tribute, and that’s a big difference when it comes doom that’s played so excruciatingly slow. Part of any perceivable change in the band’s sound, however, has to be attributed to the fact that The Wounded Kings in 2011 is a completely different band than they were even a year ago.

Now a five-piece, guitarist Steve Mills has essentially reconstructed the band around himself, with vocalist Sharie Neyland taking over for Mills’ co-founder George Birch, and drummer Mike Heath, bassist Jim Wilumsen and second guitarist Alex Kearney coming aboard to round out the current lineup. It’s still Mills in charge of the writing, and his guitars were always layered anyway with Hammond and synth (which he also handles again here), but there are discernable musical differences between In the Chapel of the Black Hand and The Wounded Kings’ past incarnations and outings. Inarguably, Heath gives the best performance on drums the band has ever had on an album – and the best-sounding, as captured by Chris Fielding of the Welsh Foel Studios (Electric Wizard, Conan, Serpent Venom) – and Neyland’s vocals, while perhaps sharing some of Birch’s vibrato and echoing otherworldliness in their depictions of pagan and occult ceremonies and themes, are bound to be a key distinguishing factor for many listeners, if only for the gender-switch of the band’s frontperson. Mills remains consistent tonally, on these cuts, particularly with “Curse of Chains” from the Cough split, which had better production overall than the last record, but shows growth in his songwriting methodology. Centered around three longer tracks – “The Cult of Souls,” “Gates of Oblivion” (with parts subtitled “The Descent,” “Dominion” and “Arrival”) and the closing “In the Chapel of the Black Hand” – with the four-minute “Return of the Sorcerer” just before the closer, In the Chapel of the Black Hand feels more concise than its predecessor, even though it’s almost exactly the same length. The ambience of The Shadow Over Atlantis’ instrumentals, “Into the Ocean’s Abyss” and “Deathless Echo,” has been reworked and added to the songs themselves here, and In the Chapel of the Black Hand flows smoother for it, its doomed march that much more visceral.

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Guitarist Steve Mills of UK-based cult doomers The Wounded Kings checked in with an update on the band, who are getting ready to record their third album (second for Sweden‘s I Hate Records) in June. Busy times for Foel Studios, it seems. Conan‘s new split was done there, as will be their next album, and Groan are headed in come mid-August for their second record, as reported yesterday. Makes me wonder who’s there in July.

Also of note in the realm of The Wounded Kings is a new lineup, which Mills details below. He has this:

We now have our new lineup complete with new members Alex Kearney (guitar) Jim Willumsen (bass) Sharie Neyland (vox) and Mike Heath (drums).

We will be entering Foel Studios (Electric Wizard, Napalm Death and Conan) in June to record the five tracks that will make up our third album, In The Chapel of The Black Hand, which will be released through I Hate Records once again.

Some bands you just know are going to be unrelenting, and that’s certainly the case with long-running New Jersey mega-doomers Evoken. Their last outing saw them reissue their first demo in the form of Shades of Night Descending on Displeased Records, and now they follow that with four new tracks on a split with Swedish outfit Beneath the Frozen Soil on the I Hate imprint that also released their excellent 2007 full-length, A Caress of the Void. Beneath the Frozen Soil were also last heard from in terms of new material in ’07, when they released a split with Long Island, NY, sludgers Negative Reaction. Maybe they just have something for the East Coast, but either way, the pairing with Evoken makes more sense sonically, as Beneath the Frozen Soil are closer to them in sound and overall feel. What that means as regards listening is that the split is consistent in terms of flow, and if you’ve ever heard anything from either of these two bands, you already know the extremely oppressive nature of their output.

Evoken are positively volatile. Their six-piece lineup (which, near as I can tell, sometimes includes founding guitarist Nick Orlando and sometimes doesn’t) is brutally heavy and agonizingly slow, topped with the unearthly growls of guitarist John Paradiso, who only veers from the guttural to embark on the occasional echoed whisper (see the closing movement of “Omniscient”) or dramatic spoken part (“The Pleistocene Epoch”). If all of their albums weren’t over an hour long, I’d be tempted to call Evoken’s four-track contribution to the Beneath the Frozen Soil split full-length at over 42 minutes; in any case, they’re certainly not lacking in conveyance of aural hopelessness. Drummer/founder Vince Verkay makes the most of his nearly 20 years of experience in the band, easily taking on the task of grounding the 13-minute “The Pleistocene Epoch” – which would confound many – and knowing when to step back and give the guitars room, as on “Vestigial Fears.” Keyboardist Don Zaros provides some respite from the crushing sounds, but between the guitars (Chris Molinari makes three), Verkay’s morose pacing and the added thickness of Dave Wagner’s pace, Evoken are near-lethal in their miserable cohesion. They finish cold (of course) on “Vestigial Fears” and close their portion with “Into the Primal Shrine,” – their only cut under 10 minutes at 7:21 – which is instrumental but for a few non-verbal growls from Paradiso spread across the earlier moments.

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I’m going to be honest with you: I really, really like this album. I’ve gone back to it time and again since hearing it early this year, and doing so has brought me nothing but satisfaction. The Wounded Kings are a bright spot on the UK‘s hope for the doomed future. I felt that way with 2008’s Embrace of the Narrow House, and I feel that way with their I Hate Records debut, The Shadow Over Atlantis.

Not only is the record cohesive sonically and ideologically, but multi-instrumentalist Steve Mills and guitarist/bassist/vocalist George Birch inflict an atmosphere so dense that it affects your mood for the rest of the day. There’s plenty of doom out there that’s dreary, but The Wounded Kings go beyond the melancholic, plunging the depths of Lovecraftian terror and arising therefrom with a hellacious beauty in tow. “The Swirling Mist” and “The Sons of Belial” are more rituals than songs.

The Shadow Over Atlantis also marks the end of an era for The Wounded Kings, as they’ve since gone on to include a full-time bassist and drummer in Luke Taylor and Nick Collings (respectively). Already this new lineup has shown its prowess on the An Introduction to the Black Arts split LP with Cough, and with their increased ability to play live now that they’re a complete band, The Wounded Kings feel like they’re just getting started. Let’s hope that’s the case.

When they made their debut in 2008 with Embrace of the Narrow House (Eichenwald Industries), the then-duo of multi-instrumentalist Steve Mills and vocalist/guitarist George Birch inserted themselves into the ever-growing sphere of bands with a direct line to Black Sabbath‘s darkest moments we commonly know as traditional doom. Though subgenre designations are debatable (endlessly so), what comes across centrally in the material of the UK‘s The Wounded Kings is not the band paying homage in the form of imitation, but rather, striving to bring something new to the foundations on which they’re working.

With their follow-up, sophomore effort, The Shadow over Atlantis, on Sweden‘s I Hate Records, Mills and Birch have developed this ethic even further, incorporating linear songwriting and threaded themes running the course of the record’s six tracks. Not only is the sound (recorded by Mills) working within and beyond the parameters of doom, but by injecting elements of darkened psychedelia and classical compositions, The Wounded Kings are ensuring none who hear The Shadow over Atlantis will come out of it without realizing the individuality driving the band who wrote those songs.

Though The Wounded Kings have since made permanent their two live members — bassist Luke Taylor and drummer Nick Collings — and are scheduled to participate in this year’s Roadburn Festival in The Netherlands, and though The Shadow over Atlantis was recorded nearly a year ago, Mills recently took some time out for a cross-continental phone interview to discuss the album, its concept and the band’s motivations and outlook going forward. You’ll find it available for reading after the jump. Enjoy.

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Whenever I hear a record like the The Shadow over Atlantis, the jaw-dropping sophomore outing from UK doomers The Wounded Kings (and contrary to whatever hyperbole is yet to come, reason knows there are other albums that have provoked this reaction), I feel oppressed by it, like I’m drowning in it — and yes, that is a very good thing. The duo’s I Hate Records label debut crosses traditional lines with newer atmospheres, and maintains a punishingly, torturously slow approach that simply is the essence of doom. As the cover art harkens to the vinyl days of yore while keeping a mystical, occult vibe, so too does the music fall into line across the six tracks of the album.

The Shadow over Atlantis is bookended by two 10-plus-minute tracks; “The Swirling Mist” and “Invocation of the Ancients.” Between them are four interestingly timed pieces, “Baptism of Atlantis” (8:11), “Into the Ocean’s Abyss” (2:02), “The Sons of Belial” (8:01) and “Deathless Echo” (2:50). The shorter tracks are essentially mood pieces and interludes, “Deathless Echo” setting up the closer especially well with multi-layered organ synth work from multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Steve Mills. The structure of the album isn’t necessarily based solely on the timing of these songs — that is, it doesn’t depend on them for flow or its overarching melancholic groove — but the numbers are interesting nonetheless, and add somehow to the mystery of the listening experience.

This is occult doom, through and through. It comes out in both the music’s slow ritualism and in the lyrics, which are delivered with a sort of far-off vibrato like Pete Stahl of Goatsnake in an echo chamber with Messiah Marcolin. There is a traceable narrative of mythological destruction (that of Atlantis comes to mind), but The Shadow over Atlantis isn’t a concept record in the Ayreon sense. Each track offers a complete and satisfying listen — interludes notwithstanding; though I might argue for either piece out of context delivering something on its own as well — and it’s just when they all come together that The Wounded Kings’ doomly immersion is complete.

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This is good news for several reasons. First, it means that UK traditional doom outfit The Wounded Kings are going to put out a new album. Second, it means Sweden‘s I Hate Records is still around, which if I’m not mistaken was kind of up in the air for a while. Third, well, the third is pretty much just a combination of the two, but it’s good news anyway. Here’s the gist of the email guitarist Steve Mills sent over to let me know what was up:

We are proud to announce that we have just inked a deal with awesome?Swedish label I Hate Records who will release our second album The Shadow over Atlantis in November 2009.

Congratulations and hearty doom to those guys. In case you missed out on The Wounded Kings‘ debut, Embrace of the Narrow House, it ruled. Get in touch with them via their MySpace and apologize profusely for not being on the ball at the time.