{"id":89031,"date":"2021-03-26T00:00:14","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T00:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=89031"},"modified":"2021-04-11T16:52:02","modified_gmt":"2021-04-11T15:52:02","slug":"ep-review-potion-oath-to-flame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/ep-review-potion-oath-to-flame\/","title":{"rendered":"POTION – Oath To Flame EP (2021) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

POTION
Oath To Flame EP<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSelf-released (2021)<\/span>
Rating: 6.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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This Sydney, Australia-based doom metal act made their presence known to me via their 2018 single \u2018Women Of The Wand\u2019 and I\u2019d hoped by now that a full-length release may have surfaced, but for now I\u2019ll have to make do with this two-track, 15-minute affair.<\/p>\n

The band is a trio fronted by Lee Jowono who has an infectious drool to his style, while behind him bassist Stella Leung grinds away to create massive walls of distorted sludge that complement the guitars of Jowono and the drums of Chris Downey.<\/p>\n

What we get here is some nasty, slow, grinding dirty doom metal that is little on frills but effective all the same. Opener \u2018Torchbearer\u2019 runs for eight-minutes, but rarely drags and remains melancholic and syrupy. At times the track borders on deathlier climes, but with heaps of melody in its chords as the vocals snipe and scrape away at the grime.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hallucination Rites\u2019 begins slowly, evoking images of festering, fly-swarmed waterholes before heaving itself from its squalid state and continuing its lumber. The only real variation emerges with starker passages, but the grinding theme is the same. Lee Jowono scowls from his pit of despair, his vocals reaching into the murk as he asks of \u201cwhat horrors lie within this trip\u201d<\/em> as a searing sludge chord rips from the mire before returning back to the dreary drudgery of dirt.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting that the band describes themselves as \u201cpsychedelic heavy metal\u201d, and while I wouldn\u2019t entirely agree there are certainly heavy psychedelic sounds as a running theme. So in a sense, it would also be unfair to call such a sound strictly \u201cdoom\u201d or \u201csludge\u201d, as the trio incorporates numerous heavyweight styles while remaining persistent in its trudge.<\/p>\n

I think more deviation may emerge with a full-length release because at times this two-track EP can be a little testing. As it stands Potion are ticking along nicely, but may have to up the stakes when it comes to their next move. While lumbering, grinding psychedelic doom is popular, there are a lot of bands doing this sort of thing.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

POTIONOath To Flame EP Self-released (2021)Rating: 6.5\/10 This Sydney, Australia-based doom metal act made their presence known to me via their 2018 single \u2018Women Of The Wand\u2019 and I\u2019d hoped by now that a full-length release may have surfaced, but for now I\u2019ll have to make do with this two-track, 15-minute affair. The band is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4632],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-potion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89032,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89031\/revisions\/89032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}