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Sinister Realm Know How to Make an Entrance

DOOMThe strangest thing just happened. I was in my car on the way back from an RLE (?Real Life Engagement?) and listening to a record I?ve played a thousand times before. When that ended and I decided to load up Sinister Realm?s self-titled Shadow Kingdom Records debut one more time before setting fingers to keys to review it. All of a sudden, what was a normal blue Jersey sky clouded over in almost an instant, the wind picked up and suddenly things looked very bleak.

I?m not necessarily saying Sinister Realm?s first album has the power to block out the sun, but I wouldn?t count it out either. The Allentown, PA, double-guitar five-piece show a proclivity toward the ancient metallic secrets of old and couple it with more than capable melodicism across the nine tracks of the record. By that I mean the solos kick ass, the songs are memorable, the riffs rule and the vocals will have you hoisting your ale horn in triumphant celebration.

Metal. Very, very metal.

Nice nails, bro.From the start, ?(The Oracle) Into the Depths of Hell,? Sinister Realm show off what they can do. Vocalist Alex Kristof has a powerful middle range, not often stretching to hit high notes or overly theatrical, but classy and well suited to the material. The music hits some classic metal sticking points — the militaristic-snare-into-solo of ?Message from Beyond,? the Dioisms of ?Machine God? and the curiously instrumental ?Enter the Sinister Realm? placed late just before closer ?The Circle is Broken? — but any one of those could be taken as either highlights or lowlights. In the case of all but the latter, I?m pro not con.

Guitarists Keith Patrick (since out of the band) and John Risko give a startling performance, playing especially well off each other on ?The Demon Seed? and ?March of the Damned.? Kristof as a vocalist is able to shift the tenor of his voice to better suit the music he?s singing over — not as easy as it sounds — and on ?March of the Damned? he adopts the grand, epic style of former Candlemass singer Messiah Marcolin, and does well at it, giving the song a direct lineage to doom traditionalism. The slowed, mournful segments of the song, and Sinister Realm as a whole, are some of its most effective, but the Judas Priest side on ?The Nihilist? is bound to raise some horns as well.

The rhythm section of bassist/backing vocalist/credited band mastermind John Gaffney (ex-Pale Divine) and drummer Darin McCloskey (also ex-Pale Divine, and now ex-Sinister Realm as well) is similarly adaptable, moving with ease between the speedier and slower and giving the album a sense of continuance and flow. There probably isn?t much Sinister Realm have brand new to offer to jaded oldschool doomers — that is, though their songwriting is strong they?re not really breaking any new ground — but in a genre geared toward honoring what?s already been done (i.e. trad doom), they indeed are backpatch worthy and a recommended listen. Just make sure you didn?t have any plans outdoors when you put it on.

Sinister Realm on MySpace

Shadow Kingdom Records

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One Response to “Sinister Realm Know How to Make an Entrance”

  1. THANKS YOU FOR THE COOL REVIEW, VERY TASTFUL, BE SURE TO CHECK OUT MORE GUITAR WORK ON MY OTHER PROJECTS WWW.MYSPACE.COM/KEITHPATRICK & WWW.MYSPACE.COM/HAPLESSCHILDMUSIC ,TAKE CARE,

    GUITARIST ON THE SINISTER REALM CD
    KEITH PATRICK

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