11th hour burden of grief

Released: 2 November 2009 Label: Napalm Records

With an album title of Burden of Grief, you'd be safe to assume that this album from The 11th Hour would be rooted in the Doom Metal genre. And you’d be quite correct to make that assumption. Classic Doom, very much in the style of Candlemass, but with some grunts thrown in.

Burden of Grief is the debut album from this Dutch based collaboration, and a pretty good effort it is too. Featuring the skills of multi-instrumentalist Ed Warby (Gorefest, Hail Of Bullets, Ayreon) and Rogga Johansson (Edge of Sanity, Demiurg, Paganizer, Ribspreader) the band have some impressive credentials behind them. According to the bands Myspace site, Ed plays all the instruments on this album, as well as writing it and doing half the vocals. Good job they bring in extra people for the live show then.

The music itself is dark and gloomy, with grunts adding an extra dimension to the sound over the Candlemass-like clean vocals. The songs tell a story of impending death and introspection, and project a suitably gloomy mood, but there’s no undercurrent of despair or emotion to it.

So far as the album as a whole is concerned, I have two main criticisms. Firstly, if I want some music that sounds like Candlemass, I’ll listen to a Candlemass album. That’s not to say that this album isn’t well performed and produced, because it is. It’s just that it sounds too much like someone else.

Secondly, and maybe I’m nitpicking given that it’s a doom album, all the song titles, lyrics and even the mood is all a bit, well, cheesy. There, I’ve said it. Cheesy Doom Metal, if such a thing exists, would sound remarkably like this album. Maybe Ed was trying too hard to make a classic doom album, and as a result has perhaps gone a bit over the top. Despite the subject matter and the gloominess of the sounds, there’s no sense of depression or pain or even apprehension in it, which no doubt contributes to the dairy content.

Having said that, I quite like the album, the sound, the mood and the crushing guitar riffs, but there’s always just that little Brie aftertaste that will prevent this from being a great album.

by Alan Thomson