Now, some of these occult doom rock bands that have come around lately ain’t no count, but Demon Eye… Demon Eye is pretty decent. I was a fan of their last album, Tempora Infernalia, which made its way onto my larger Top 25 list a couple years back, so a new record from this North Carolina outfit is much appreciated.
This 11-track effort opens with “The Waters and the Wild,” which opens with a flourish before locking into a solid Pentagram-style proto-doom riff. They do pick up the pace a little bit, sounding sorta like vintage Trouble (no, not the soul band!) before delivering a deliver-us-from-evil chorus. So far, we’re off to an outstanding start! “In The Spider’s Eye” is chock-a-block with stop-start riffs, with a chorus that wouldn’t sound outta place on Psalm 9. And man, is that ever a doomy riff that hits around the 2:45 mark!
With an average track length right around four minutes, they cycle through these tunes pretty quickly. “Kismet” has a swirling riff reminiscent of Iron Maiden, while “Infinite Regress” switches things up with a mellower, almost jazzy break. “Dying for It” is a little more up-tempo, with a pounding, chugging riff and a vocal delivery that sounds like Deep Purple, or maybe even Dio. And there’s sort of a COC riff that’s pervasive in “Politic Devine”—this record was produced by Mike Dean after all.
If there’s one complaint, it’s that some of these shorter songs do blend together as they fly past you—but this is but a minor complaint. As far as the retro-rock/proto-doom spectrum is concerned, you might not hear a better album this year.
