By Albert Mansour
Swedish doom metal band Count Raven started back in 1989 with two demos that same year. Here they are back with their fifth full length album. It was a long 13 year wait for Mammons War. This band reminds me of other such groups as Sleep, Trouble, Saint Vitus and Orange Goblin. The things I liked about this album are that it is very well played, written and arranged from the get go. I am noticing that Count Raven riffs are very well balanced and really well played. There’s many great tracks on this eleven song album such as “The Poltergeist,” “Seven Days” and “Increasing Deserts,” which is a real head-trip of a ‘time travel.’ The things that I didn’t like were that this cd really didn’t scare me as much as I was expecting it to. Everyone says it is a cheap copy of early Sabbath; I think those that think so should just shake that fact off. I guess that probably lessened the impact of the album for some, who like to say the vocals are done as a clone of Ozzy’s. It just didn’t bother me. Oh well. I still found it to be an excellent album over all. After the cd was over, I felt like I needed to hear this a second time due to the fact that I really enjoyed the album first time through. Mammons War is kick-ass Doom metal offering, combining elements from several genres; Dan “Fodde” Fondelius has done a fine job creating that. A very respectable and a pretty cool album to check out.
(I Hate)
