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.

And it does plod. To their credit, The Wounded Kings have remained largely consistent on pacing since their 2008 Embrace of the Narrow House debut, and while they pick it up a bit for “Return of the Sorcerer” – relatively speaking – the question is still “how slow can you go?” and the answer is still “pretty fucking slow.” Even the fade that brings up Mills’ organ on “The Cult of Souls” to open the album takes about a minute before it’s up to full volume, and the next 13 minutes of the song follow a pace the objective of which could only be punishment. It’s not long before Neyland comes in on vocals, and she’s prominent in the mix when she does, evoking Dionysus repeatedly as the track plays out, backed by the undulating distortion and grueling churn. Fielding’s production is a huge asset to the band’s overall presentation, again, particularly as concerns Heath’s drums, but Mills and Kearney on guitar and Wilumsen on bass propel the tonal weight of “The Cult of Souls,” each riff of which circles like a looming threat. Interestingly, “The Cult of Souls” and “Gates of Oblivion” follow a similar course, the latter even fading in (it seems to do so in rhythmic increments coinciding with each cymbal crash, which rules) gradually for its introduction. True to its subtitles, “Gates of Oblivion” does follow three separate movements, the last of them being the most memorable thanks to Neyland’s chorus, but even so, if just for the fact that it’s paced similarly until the finale as its predecessor and runs a similar 13-plus minutes, comparisons are inevitable. The Wounded Kings aren’t really repeating themselves – a surprisingly bluesy guitar solo midway serves to further distinguish “Gates of Oblivion” – but on the first couple listens through, it’s easy to take In the Chapel of the Black Hand as a wash of dark and oppressive tones, Neyland’s cultish chants and dreary doomed mysticism. If I haven’t made it clear yet, it’s fucking heavy.

They probably could have combined “Return of the Sorcerer” and “In the Chapel of the Black Hand” into one track and had a three-song full-length – the one bleeds directly into the other and they aren’t so disparate in pacing or tone as to be potentially out of place – but keeping them apart provides both a showcase for the lead guitar work that consumes much of “Return of the Sorcerer” (apparently the sorcerer is pretty fleet of finger) and gives listeners a chance to recover before the 10-minute title-track takes hold. A bit faster, a bit more swaying, with more of a line-based delivery from Neyland over Heath’s smooth tom fills in the chorus, In the Chapel of the Black Hand’s closer is among the strongest work yet to come from The Wounded Kings. The guitar takes just a fraction more of a melodic approach in the aforementioned chorus, and it’s not that they’re offering hope – not likely from this band – but toying with the idea of there being some source of light somewhere, ever. It makes the ultra-forlorn stomp that ensues even more affecting. A synth chorus backs Neyland for part of the latter half, adding to the culmination feel, and the song lumbers its way to an expected but no less satisfying end, the guitars ringing out to a feedbacked and suitably mournful conclusion. That The Wounded Kings could pull off such a coherent album in so little time since the last is one thing, but when you take into account that Mills is the only remaining member from a record that came out a year ago, the accomplishments of In the Chapel of the Black Hand become all the more impressive. But even if you discount all that, even if you never heard The Wounded Kings before and are seeing the name for the first time, the drudging “The Cult of Souls” still makes for one of 2011’s best doomed atmospheres. But if there’s one thing it isn’t, it’s traditional. Pretty clear from listening to In the Chapel of the Black Hand that The Wounded Kings are under no one’s spell but their own.

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Tags: I Hate, The Wounded Kings, UK

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.