It would be a gross exaggeration to say that Spain is the new Sweden, but getting to Finland or Polish levels they sure are. During the last few years, some of the most exciting underground metal bands have come up from the land of the paella and the calimocho, and in 2011, to play dumb to that is detrimental. Those in doubt may have been shut to the aural terrorism of Proclamation, Teitanblood, Machetazo, Moho, Orthodox, Graveyard and Dishammer. Always nasty, impossibly heavy and vastly underrated, Spanish bands seem to have taken a route of non-conformism, collectively fostering a small but festering scene of creative pariahs.
Unfortunately by large, the world isn’t paying attention. Recently, Seville’s Orthodox released Baal, their fourth full-length and their first record to not receive distribution in the United States. Their brand of experimental and free form doom is at its zenith, however it is tragically being overlooked. It is likely that Monkeypriest’s first full-length The Psalm will suffer a similar fate.
We covered the band’s 2009 EP Defending the Tree and were in awe by their mastodonic riffs but puzzled by a few of their choices. With The Psalm, Monkeypriest hasn’t exactly advanced, but they have delivered what is without a doubt one of the best doom and sludge metal releases of the year. The record brims with confidence and explodes with the kind of thick riffage that lingers around far beyond the point of discomfort.
The Psalm kicks out with an intro. It is titled “Hanuman’s Dance” and it is perhaps the perfect example of what a doom band at its core should do; minimal arrangements spewing giant sounds. Every single one of the six tracks that follows works hard at it, carefully arranged guitar notes slowly building out an album that is vast in scope and sound.
In The Psalm, Monkeypriest show that they know a couple of things about the genre; they know how to play about in the field and they know that their songwriting must remain distinctive from piece to piece. That’s why on “The Word of the Priest” the tempo is upped to mid and then sunk for kickers, on the title track the music drags and agonizes only to reach a point at which the drums speed up beyond control and on “Involution” a seemingly gentle but equally eerie start dissolves into decaying notes. The material is impressive to say the least.
The album includes a cover of Cerebral Fix’s “Feast of the Fools”. Monkeypriest do not add much originality into it, let’s face it it is not in their blood, but the track is executed with such chutzpah it almost deletes the original from the annals of British metal.
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Written by Ignacio Brown
