This is Doom. And I don’t mean the sappy kind where you can make any reference to Gothic or epic whatsoever, but pure sludgy and groovy doom, build on a foundation of heavy riffs. The culprits are HEAVY LORD, from The Netherlands whom with this “From Cosmos To Chaos” have released their second album.

Next to the guitar work which can be seen as an extreme sludgy and heavy version of SABBATH-styled riffs HEAVY LORD uses a bit of experimentation to add variety. The vocals for example are usually pretty distorted and half sung/half growled but the second half of “Elephaunt” sees some really psychedelic singing over calmer music which works really well. “The Ego Has Landed” (song-title of the year!) has a brilliant sharp solo coming out of nowhere and continues with great groovy and almost galloping riffs. And “Scorpion Sting” in the beginning has an unmistakable “Children Of The Grave” vibe that works really well with their heavy kind of Doom.

Back to vocals – “One In Billion” has everything from shrieking screams to deep growls to desperate shouts and it always seems to fit their sound. Because there are only five songs on this 40+ minute album every one of them is lengthy with many different sections, all varying in quality, so it’s hard to point a favourite song. Nonetheless the variety is subtle yet real good but I can’t help but feel that this album reveals only a part of their talent; if they improve the songwriting they should be capable of even more interesting stuff!

(Online October 23, 2006)