{"id":93127,"date":"2022-03-18T00:00:40","date_gmt":"2022-03-18T00:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=93127"},"modified":"2022-04-04T14:32:41","modified_gmt":"2022-04-04T13:32:41","slug":"album-review-friends-of-hell-friends-of-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-friends-of-hell-friends-of-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"FRIENDS OF HELL – Friends Of Hell (2022) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

FRIENDS OF HELL
Friends Of Hell<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nRise Above (2022)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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When I heard this record was in the pipeline there was a buzz in my soul in spite of being concerned that members Tas Danazoglou (ex-Electric Wizard) and Albert Witchfinder (ex-Reverend Bizarre) might just be on another dopo-drenched kick.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, this self-titled debut platter \u2013 the band named after the classic 1983 Witchfinder General album \u2013 is a straight-up cauldron of stripped down doom metal that conjures up images of classic Pentagram, Candlemass et al as opener \u2018Out With The Wolves\u2019 rolls with claps of thunder, riffage and percussive stabs.<\/p>\n

Okay, so it\u2019s all Black Sabbath<\/a> down to the wire, but it sure does make a change to hear some authentic no frills doom metal instead of all this cheesy occult weed-cum-wizard crap where band\u2019s spend more time on album cover design than actual musical content.<\/p>\n

The snarling, whining vocal croons add extra edge to the likes of the monolithic \u2018Shadow Of The Impaler\u2019 and doom-spangled stodge of \u2018Into My Coffin\u2019, while the grey booming clouds of \u2018Friends Of Hell\u2019 writhe in slo-mo solitude, where the drawn out vocal cries are mournful commands of gloom.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, \u2018Orion\u2019s Beast\u2019 wails like some crusty Black Widow off-court, the ridiculously titled \u2018Gateless Gate\u2019 trudges ominously, and \u2018Belial\u2019s Bell\u2019 matches it for evil oozing. But pluck any bloodied feather from this nine-track affair and you\u2019ll be rewarded with nugget after nugget \u2013 chunky, stark rolling doom, whether in the form of the Sabbathian traipse of \u2018Evil They Call Us\u2019 or the closing chimes of \u2018Wallachia\u2019, a six-minute expression of aching doom.<\/p>\n

Yep, it\u2019s doom, doom, doom and gloom, but in the way it should be done. So come my fanatics and join the circle of the Friends Of Hell.<\/p>\n

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

FRIENDS OF HELLFriends Of Hell Rise Above (2022)Rating: 8\/10 When I heard this record was in the pipeline there was a buzz in my soul in spite of being concerned that members Tas Danazoglou (ex-Electric Wizard) and Albert Witchfinder (ex-Reverend Bizarre) might just be on another dopo-drenched kick. Thankfully, this self-titled debut platter \u2013 the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4758],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-friends-of-hell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93127","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=93127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93128,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93127\/revisions\/93128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}