“Some refer to them as ‘the Nirvana of doom,’” says the accompanying bumph to Swedish doom trio Monolord’s third full-length. Who those ‘some’ are is a mystery, but calling someone the Nirvana of anything isn’t a recommended topic of polite conversation. You can see what they mean, though. On the surface, the Swedes’ riff-built wall of fuzz is more obviously indebted to slow swagger of the likes of Saint Vitus, Pentagram or, during the slumbering, string-augmented melancholy of Wormland in particular, the occult strains of Candlemass. Like the Seattle grunge legends, however, the trio know how to write a memorable hook, crafting here six tracks of lumbering doom that are hugely accessible without having sacrificed their crushing heaviness – the ethereal yet pulverising epic Forgotten Lands being the zenith of this approach.
