Promos almost always come with a press kit, which usually gives a little background about the band/release in order to drum up hype (other sites much more professional than I will paraphrase or copy paste these paragraphs, for example), and I'm gonna be real with you, I was sold on Smoulder from six words in their little blurb: "mixed and mastered by Arthur Rizk."
That's it, right there. Album of the Year material already.
All of the other info didn't matter. Oh the band is half based in Toronto and half in Chicago, that's cool I guess. Sarah does reviews on Banger TV? Oh yeah I've seen the one where she tried to convince me that The Forest Seasons was good. Arthur Rizk is behind the knobs? Oh slap my ass and call me Barbara sign me the fuck up. Rizk is the Scott Burns of our generation. Just like how Burns was the first guy to really figure out how to produce death metal (a huge reason why Florida was such a mecca of death metal in the early 90s, considering that's where Morrisound Studios (where he worked) was located), Rizk seems to be the Wayne Gretzky of understanding how to reach a retro wall of sound with updated quality and a massive low end, constantly churning out metal that sounds like how 1984 would've sounded if current technology was available. The amount of stellar releases over the last few years that have achieved a sound akin to standing in a packed house while a band cranks out at max volume all thanks to him is astounding. An extremely short list of bands he's helped sound their best in recent years include Eternal Champion, Power Trip, Sumerlands, Pissgrave, Tomb Mold, Scorched, Gatekeeper, Uada, Outer Heaven, Crypt Sermon, Homewrecker, Inquisition, and Mammoth Grinder. This dude just fucking gets it. Everything he touches sounds immaculate without being sterilized like Andy Sneap or Neil Kernon, he's the premier metal producer right now and nobody can touch him.
So it's no surprise that Smoulder's debut, Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring, sounds like fucking Krakatoa. This is probably most similar to Eternal Champion or Crypt Sermon out of the bands mentioned above, blending pulpy sword and sorcery high fantasy with sweeping epic doom, which is a combination that we have known for years is a perfect match for heavy metal. These riffs are fucking mountainous, the drums sound like an avalanche, everything about this just sounds monumental.
They say that a chain can only be as strong as its weakest link, but I would argue that that's a bad analogy since Smoulder is proof that the stronger links can merely leak excess steel and as a result temper the weak link. Yeah, Sarah isn't all that great of a vocalist in technical terms, but the music around her is so fucking strong that it doesn't really matter. Her voice is lacking in both range and power, but with Shawn's monstrous riffing and Kevin's powerful drumming being the true carrying force of the music, it doesn't really want for any command. From the pummeling barabarism of "Ilian of Garathorm", to the high speed whirlwind of "Bastard Steel", everything is proactive and destructive. It's hard to play epic doom without drawing comparisons to Candlemass, and Smoulder is no exception here, which is great because they absolutely nail that sweeping, spiritual atmosphere that the Swedes commanded so deftly in their prime years, and they also take their lesson that rules are for fucking squares and confidently break from the dogmatic ethos of the genre, and are thus unafraid pick up the pace and infuse old school speed metal when the music calls for it.
Another huge element that works to the band's benefit is the fact that they're clearly skilled at self editing. It can be tempting, especially with low tempos and massive atmospheres, to stretch albums to nearly marathon length, but Times of Obscene Evil is very succinct, with only six songs clocking in at roughly 37 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome. As a result there's nothing that can really be considered filler, every idea has a purpose and every riff has a target that it aims for and hits easily. Only "Shadowy Sisterhood" kinda falls flat and doesn't do anything particularly memorable, but the sweeping atmosphere coupled with powerful riffage keeps the best tracks like "Ilian of Garathorm", "Black God's Kiss", and "The Sword Woman" at the top of the heap of modern doom. I can't get enough of this album, everything about it just soars over the battlefield and drops fucking bombs on it.
So at the end of the day, Smoulder plays some of the most exciting and evocative epic doom of the modern era on their own, and the skilled hand of Rizk behind the controls only boosts them to an even higher plane of badassery. At the end of the day I think that's the word I've been looking for all along, "badass". Smoulder is fucking badass and nothing is holding them back from conquering the fucking world. The pounding toms and savage riffs are so fucking primitive and barbaric, the songwriting is savage and weighty, the atmosphere is epic and eldritch, just damn near every single element of the music on Times of Obscene Evil hits bullseye and this is going to easily contend for the top spot for Album of the Year this year unless something else truly magical storms out of the gates and hogties this. But with how muscular and brutish this is, I'm skeptical that anything can truly dominate this.
RATING: 92%
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