Some harsher vocals from guitarist Jeff Maurer add a darker, metallic edge to the proceedings, but at its heart, French trio Surtr‘s second album, Pulvis et Umbra, is traditional doom all the way. Whether you run it back to Saint Vitus and The Obsessed or Count Raven and Reverend Bizarre, it rounds out to the same downward spiral of riffs and misery. That seems just fine by the Lorraine outfit, who release the album on Altsphere Production as the follow-up to 2011’s World of Doom debut, as the material shows no real ambition to transcend beyond the occasional flash of early Viking metal (read: Bathory) influence on a song like “Three Winters of War” in its reaching past genre, and the band are decently suited to their style. Production throughout is clear but largely flat and shifts in tempo offer little change from the mood, which is as dreary as one might expect across the seven-track/42-minute full-length, and while perhaps unremarkable in offering a groundbreaking take on doom, Pulvis et Umbra — the title translating from the Latin to “Ashes and Dust” — stands as an able execution of genre and a cohesive release nonetheless. It ain’t gonna change the world, but as doom for doomers, one could probably find bands with much less to offer than Surtr, depending on how deep into the mire one wanted to look.

The album begins with “Rise Again,” organ holding a melody line under Maurer‘s guitar, Julien Kuhn‘s bass and Régis Beck‘s drums initially but seeming to fade away once the slow crawl of the track’s central progression is introduced. Straightforward through and through, Maurer has a traditional metal inflection to his cleaner singing that’s instantly familiar as “Rise Again” plays out, Kuhn offering a few engaging fills in the open spaces left by the guitar. Gradually, they solidify to a forward thrust, but it’s not until the final minute that they really pick up the pace and Maurer reveals a screaming approach that’s soon layered with growls underneath to varying success, capping with barks of “Rise! Rise!” to act as an apex before the Viking-style drum thud of “Three Winters of War” sets the tone for the riff before dropping out to make way for it. This time it’s the verse that’s more active and the chorus that slows down. Fine. Maurer‘s voice reminds a bit of Slough Feg‘s latter day incantations, but without the Celt-folk idiosyncrasies, keeping the melody in line with Kuhn‘s able basslines, which actually wind up providing most of the character the band shows throughout. That’s not to take anything away from Beck or Maurer‘s performances, they’re just more straightforward, and even when “Three Winters of War” shifts into its Cathedral-style ending progression, there’s no sense of flourish to be found from either of them.

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Everything I’ve seen, heard or read about French stoner rockers Wheelfall compares them to Slo Burn (fair since “Wheel Fall” was the name of a track on the latter’s 1996 demo), so in the interest of comparison and a refresher, I took out the Amusing the Amazing EP and put it next to Wheelfall’s self-released debut extended player, From the Blazing Sky at Dusk. What did I find out, you ask? Well, I found out John Garcia is awesome and the kid from Wheelfall is no John Garcia, but I don’t suppose that does much for a review.

Yeah, I guess a Slo Burn comparison works, but there are at least 100 other desert rock acts who would fit just as well, most notably Kyuss, whose Blues for the Red Sun could easily be seen as the blueprint for From the Blazing Sky at Dusk. The double-guitar Lorraine four-piece do a job of balancing groove and aggression, and their tones are pretty well what you’d expect from desert fuzz. According to their bio, they will, “beat you down with an [sic] heavy atmosphere and a fuzzy distortion up your ass.” I can say from several listening experiences, From the Blazing Sky at Dusk sounds much more pleasant than that.

Vocals come courtesy of guitarist Wayne Furter, whose gruff delivery is a bit of a put-on and could stand some development (in which this EP will doubtless aid), but is a decent match with these five-plus tracks anyway. There are three interludes on From the Blazing Sky at Dusk – titled “From the…” “…Blazing Sky… (Nasa)” and “…At Dusk…” – that seem to recount some alien capture and subsequent rectal probing (perhaps with a fuzzy distortion), but five genuine songs, which is why I make the distinction “five-plus.” The interludes, apart from “…Blazing Sky… (Nasa),” which jams a bit, don’t really feature any music from Wheelfall, so although I’ve dedicated a paragraph to them at this point, I’d just as soon not count them, as by my estimation they don’t really add anything to the release. It’s not like the desert atmosphere was lacking before they came along.

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