Subterranea: derranged doomsters Opium Warlords unveil new track

Fronted by Sami Albert Hymnien, better known to worshippers of gloriously laboured, crushing riffs as Albert Witchfinder, the genuinely eccentric former overlord of Finnish doom legends Reverend Bizarre, Opium Warlords mark another chapter in his scenic and scintillating journey into the wildest outposts of the genre.

Having dropped the bewildering We Meditate Under The Pussy In The Sky album in 2012, the great man is back to fuck with our minds all over again in the form of his new album, which goes under the complementary title of Taste My Sword Of Understanding, released on May 30 via Svart Records.

A tapestry of different moods, mostly lapping up and down on the far shores of sanity, that add up into a sprawling, strangely affecting whole, Taste My Sword… is an epic testament to one man’s unruly muse, and we have an exclusive taster in the form of the 12-minute opus, The Self-Made Man. Returning to Sami’s roots, located in vast, portentously barren plains that sure ain’t in Kansas (although there’s a decaying wooden, signpost to My Dying Bride in its midst), this is doom at its most majestic. Cast off all hope and roam through the woebegone realms below!

The Self-Made Man

Prostrate yourself before Opium Warlord’s Facebook here!

Seek restitution by ordering Taste My Sword Of Understanding here!

Having freelanced regularly for the Melody Maker and Kerrang!, and edited the extreme metal monthly, Terrorizer, for seven years, Jonathan is now the overseer of all the album and live reviews in Metal Hammer. Bemoans his obsolete superpower of being invisible to Routemaster bus conductors, finds men without sideburns slightly circumspect, and thinks songs that aren’t about Satan, swords or witches are a bit silly.