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Camel of Doom Release Psychodramas Vinyl; New Album in 2015

Posted in Whathaveyou on December 2nd, 2014 by JJ Koczan

camel of doom

Formerly the one-man project of former Esoteric guitarist Kris Clayton and now expanded to a duo, Camel of Doom have issued a vinyl version of their 2012 full-length, Psychodramas: Breaking the Knots of Twisted Synapse (review here), through Voice of Azram Records. Just 300 copies have been pressed of the album, which runs a line between death-doom and heavy psychedelia via encompassing tones and an overarching focus on atmospherics. Together with bassist Simon WhittleClayton has been working on a follow-up to Psychodramas that will be recorded early in the New Year and hopefully released sometime before the end of 2015. No easy task in following a record so widely varied, but something tells me Camel of Doom‘s next one will be worth looking forward to.

And in the meantime, vinyl. Info follows:

camel of doom psychodramas

The new album from ex-Esoteric guitarist Kris Clayton. It was recorded, mixed and mastered at Priory Recording Studios by Esoteric mainman and long time collaborator Greg Chandler, and produced by Kris Clayton to finally realize the dream imagined when the band was formed 10 long years ago.

Melding together influences from Doom, Death Metal, Stoner Rock and 70’s Psychedelic and Progressive rock genres, the record aims to be as heavy as it is trippy, as melodic as it is dissonant and as beautiful as it is twisted. This record takes the foundations built by earlier albums and adds to them, retaining the bands trademark ambient saxophone infused doom and creating new sounds with forays into blissed out vocoded post-rock and early 90’s death metal, with brief stops into dark ambient and funeral doom along the way.

Lyrically it is a concept record telling of how the artist used arcane techniques to rebuild a mind shattered by constant self abuse, drawing on the darkest aspects of the psyche to force his mind in submission to his own will. Thematically, the band has matured immensely – hardly surprising that Kris Clayton formed the band aged just 13. The sound has grown up with him.

1×12″ Purple Vinyl LP, released on Voice of Azram records. Includes poster.

There are 300 copies available worldwide, we have a limited number of 27 available for sale.

All proceeds from bandcamp sales go to the band. All sales anywhere else we see nothing!

https://camelofdoom.bandcamp.com/album/psychodramas-breaking-the-knots-of-twisted-synapse
https://www.facebook.com/camelofdoom
http://voiceofazram.com/pages/home.php

Camel of Doom, Psychodramas: Breaking the Knots of Twisted Synapse (2012/2014)

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On the Radar: Camel of Doom

Posted in On the Radar on March 11th, 2013 by JJ Koczan

It’s not a great name. I think even Kris Clayton — the multi-instrumentalist and driving force behind the UK-based solo-project Camel of Doom — would have to admit that, as band monikers go, it’s far from tops. Hey, he started the band when he was 13. Put to that scale, I don’t think I could’ve been asked to do better, then or probably now, so if you’re spending time wondering what it is about the camel exactly that makes it so doomed, or if the camel is bringing doom or it’s just doom’s camel, you’re only going to be wondering until Clayton‘s latest full-length, 2012’s Psychodramas: Breaking the Knots of Twisted Synapse, knocks you on your ass with the progressive, psychedelic — and yes, doomed — soundscape it creates.

Clayton, a former live guitarist for experimental dirgers Esoteric, performed all the instruments on Psychodramas and handled much of the recording himself (vocals were captured by Esoteric‘s Greg Chandler), but the self-released, hour-long full-length wants nothing for texture, and is rich in its wash of heavy guitars and crushingly dense rhythms. Owing influence to the likes of Godflesh and the trailblazing cosmic doom of Ufomammut and YOB, extended tracks like “The Anger of Anguish” (13:21), “From the Sixth Tower” (11:47) and the massive apex of the penultimate “Machine of Annihilation” (21:09) hone in on a massive feel like space gone slow, Clayton‘s shouts echoing in from deep reaches while shorter set-pieces like the intro “To Purify the Air,” “In This Arid Wilderness” and the outro “So it is Done” add to the ambience.

Apart from “Machine of Annihilation,” the scope of which matches its runtime, the biggest surprise probably comes in “Self Hypnosis I: The Manual,” which ups the speed and the churn to elicit a more natural-sounding Godfleshy kind of inhumanity, steeped in some of the commonalities that band had with ’90s metal before slamming on the brakes as “Self Hypnosis II: The 18th Key” takes hold with a monstrously lumbering sensibility that moves from slow, to slower, to deconstructed noise, a sample paving the way into the aforementioned “Machine of Annihilation,” which opens sweet and contemplative in the tradition of some of YOB‘s epics — looking at you, “Catharsis” — before bridging the gap between Neurosis‘ riffy churn and an unending echo of psychedelic swirling.

The first time I listened to it, I was pretty startled, but don’t let the name fool you, Clayton has something to offer with Camel of Doom, and though the band’s bio is murky — there used to be other members and Clayton has revisited older demos in newer singles, and there was a prior full-length in 2004 called The Desert at Night — if you’re going to start an exploration, Psychodramas is the place to do it. Certainly the album has enough heft and enough space to keep you busy for probably longer than it will take Clayton to come up with another one, though hopefully that’s not nine years from now.

Check out Camel of Doom on Thee Facebooks or on their Bandcamp, from which I snagged the player below:

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