Black Math Horseman - Wyllt
(Tee Pee Records TPE-094)
From Aural Innovations October 2009 update
This is a new Scott Reeder (Kyuss) produced four piece band from Los Angeles with a female vocalist. They play mostly slow melodic dreamy doomy stuff. The booklet with the digipack has all the lyrics which tell an interesting linked story. The CD features 6 tracks and lasts 37 minutes. Tyrant starts things off
and has some interesting double layered guitars and a heavy riff section intermixed with the dreamy vocal parts. Some intense drums as well at the end of the track. Deerslayer has a heavy riff and slow heavy bottom end and is a bit like TOOL until the break and the dreamy slow echoey vocals enter. Some pretty cool guitar fills in the spaces. The track ends a lot like it starts. A Barren Cause is a slow Doom track with a menacing approach and some nice double guitar parts
before the voice enters. The way the vocals are they are quite difficult to understand often but I think it is more the emotion you are suppose to take away rather than the content (read the booklet if you want to understand the cool story). Origin of Savagery is a short song (under 3 minutes) that leads into the darker tracks on the CD, Torment of the Metals. I really like the way the two guitars are basically playing complimenting and melodic lines quite often in these tracks. There are no guitar solos so to speak though. Torment starts slowly and with some beautiful guitar and it takes a while before the vocals enter. I could have really used some killer guitar at the end. I do like the way the riff changes in the last 1½ minutes but I was left wanting more from this long track. Birds of all Faiths and None and Bell from Madrone end the CD and take up 10 minutes. Vocalist Sasha really gets angry as well and screams out the vocals in the intense part before the track comes back down to earth. The real Doom returns about 4½ minutes in. Intense. A very unique sounding band. Something that is hard to do in this day and age. The music gives a special dark vibe that if you let it will catch you and take you away to another world, sometimes scary.
Check out the band web site at: http://www.myspace.com/blackmathhorseman
Check out the Tee Pee web site at: http://www.teepeerecords.com
Reviewed by Scott Heller