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I spent more than a few minutes cracking my head open and trying to figure out who was it that Centurions Ghost’s vocalist Jake Harding reminded me of. I knew I had heard that stretched to the max tone of voice somewhere before. I knew I had liked it. I just couldn’t place it. Maybe it was because who I was reminded of has done work in plenty of bands or maybe it was the fact that even though they both cover metallic territory, the distance between their sounds is light years apart. After careful deliberation, eyes closed and almost hypnotic trance, I placed it. Peter Dolving. Harding is almost a dead ringer. His long lost brother. The potential replacement if the rest of The Haunted ever grow tired of that ranting maniac.
Centurions Ghost is a doom metal band from London, England. They have been together since 2001 and Blessed and Cursed in Equal Measure is their third full-length. Like Cirith Ungol a couple of decades before and Gates of Slumber in this day and age, their doom does not necessarily translate to sloooow metal. Their songs don’t dwell in lethargy nor do they spend too much time brewing and boiling to a thick stew. No. Shit yeah, some of these songs are slow, but there are the moments of sped up energy, where the songs bloom and roll down uncontrollably. Drumer Dimitris Xekalakis for instance, makes great use of his calves, kicking into gear those double bass pedals and setting in motion a barrage of sound that is equal parts classic 80’s heavy metal and modern day sludge.
I reviewed their second album The Great Work a couple of years ago in these very same pages. I had this to say about that recording, ‘The Great Work falls somewhere between true doom and a somewhat lazy thrash version of a formerly death metal band.’ Do not read anything negative about the lazy part and do not read anything negative about the true doom part. I gave that album four sparrows because of its quality and this new one follows through with some really eloquent and articulate doom. I also brought the Peter Dolving name much quicker back then, so there might be something to say about the clarity of my mind these days.
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