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GARGANTUAN BLADE
Gargantuan Blade

Self-released (2022)
Rating: 7/10

It’s time for some textbook Finnish doom from a four-piece fronted by guitarist Samuel Wormius (aka Samuli Personen), known previously for his work with an array of bands including Outlaw and The Wandering Midget.

This debut full-length offering can be accused of feeling overlong but I think that is its aim. Even so, what you get here are four sleepy plodders. Opener ‘Necromancer’s Blood’ lumbers in majestic fashion before shifting into a slightly more upbeat groove at just over five-minutes. It’s classic, traditional doom and nothing more with nods towards the likes of Candlemass and Gates Of Slumber. Meanwhile, the ten minute ‘Black Lotus’ oozes starkly, dragged along by the sporadic hammer falls of drummer Rex Torr.

The axework is essentially bleak, heaving and a crawl at best, so it’s the sort of composition I have to be in the mood for because it really does test the attention span. Samuel’s vocals are commanding, bombastic and booming amidst the thunder claps of woe and dread, but for me it’s never a record that fully terrifies, and maybe that’s because of its rather plodding nuances that at times never fully convinces me of its doom.

‘Dungeon Lord’ is a simple yet effective nod and the closing ‘Sprectral Pillagers’ rises like a leathery leviathan awakening from its watery lair. There’s some decent lead work on the latter although by this point it has become a tad predictable, but then again that’s testimony to the band and its unwavering course through thick, trudging rhythms.

Gargantuan Blade plays standard, middle of the road doom metal and I can’t give you any more than that and neither can they, but it will appeal to those musty souls happy to nod along.

Neil Arnold

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