Dwaal - Gospel of the Vile

Angry Metal Guy

I’m not an unreasonable sludge doom fan. I get why some metal heads approach it with caution. When administered correctly, sludge doom can be transcendent (insert: Figure A, caption: YOB), but truth be told, it’s very difficult to get right. The riffs tend to be on the simple side, the songs tend to be long and many bands in the style aim to entrance the listener with repetition, which can easily become monotony. If there’s one transgression the genre too easily commits, especially in its post-metal form, it’s sprawl. Run times balloon, quiet/loud riff motifs barely change and clean, minimal passages meander. It can be like taking a drive through the exurbs, that ring of city beyond the suburbs where one cul de sac of nearly identical houses in three shades of beige follows another, and you swear you’ve passed that same Joann Fabrics and Texas Roadhouse at least twice before. Oslo, Norway’s Dwaal have entered the post/sludge/doom game with their first full-length Gospel of the Vile. Will their debut place them in the style’s upper echelons, or will this be another drive around a strip mall parking lot looking for freeway access?

Dwaal is made up of six full-time members, a lot for this genre, and they spring from the sludgy post landscape founded by Neurosis. A close contemporary in sound and style would be Amenra, with both bands adept at slow building tension, but there are moments, especially in closer “Descent,” that indicate they are very much down with Why Oh Bee (yeah you know me). Thematically, Gospel of the Vile is largely about entertaining dark desires. I know this not just because the promo sheet told me, but because vocalist Bjørnar Kristiansen’s growls are remarkably legible. His lyrics in “The Whispering One” conjure an “erotic dismemberment” and joining a romantic(?) other in the grave, reminding me a bit of something Peter Steele would have written. Kristiansen’s delivery is far from Steele’s theatrical sexiness, but oddly he shares the same penchant for rolling Rs. There are two instances when Kristiansen delivers clean, layered vocals that are so emotionally effective, I wish he would have found more ways to incorporate them.

Gospel of the Vile by Dwaal

Gospel of the Vile kicks off strong with the intro track “Ascent” and advance single “Like Rats.” Immediately noticeable is Dwaal‘s guitar tone, vitally important to any sludge band, which is so thick and meaty you could feed a whole village through the long winter with it. Both opening tracks are sharp and taut, with economic ratios of big riff to mournful melody until the closing minutes of “Like Rats” introduces a burly galloping groove. A bit of the dreaded sprawl begins to creep in on the title track, mainly in the first half, which features one too many clean wandering guitar passages in between a repetitive riff. It’s still a good riff, and the song’s second half is much tighter, with a lighter but no less rich guitar tone interspersed with the down-tuned assault which grows in urgency as Kristiansen deploys lower death growls to great affect.

From here, Gospel of the Vile goes a bit doughy before tightening it’s belt on closer “Descent.” “Obsidian Heart Burns” is another song with a stronger second half than first, with the main culprit this time a serviceable but unmemorable central riff. “The Whispering One” continues with guitar lines that are mostly there for tone, but Siri Vestby provides some nice synth lines to delineate a chorus of sorts. As the first few seconds of forlorn guitar in “Descent” unfold, the shift in mood is palpable. Looking at the song’s 16+ minute run time may have you bracing for unwarranted sprawl, but it’s every bit as tightly composed as the album’s first two tracks. Basically halved into two slow build ups, “Descent” reaches the album highlight at its midpoint when Vestby’s synths lead into one of the rare instances of cleanly sung/shouted lyrics that absolutely soar over the doleful atmosphere. After over a quarter hour of emotional release, the song ends on the ominous line “No time left. The light that you see is not from the sky.”

Overall, Dwaal show a good grasp of what makes their chosen genre tick. At its best, Gospel of the Vile delivers the kind tension and catharsis that keeps me coming back to sludge doom. There are areas to cinch up, some genre-specific generic sections to replace with the band’s own idiosyncrasies, but this is a promising first effort in a style that’s easy to play but hard to master.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Dark Essence Records
Websites: dwaaldoom.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/dwaaldoom
Releases Worldwide: March 6th, 2020

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