Lord Vicar
Fear No Pain

LA RECENSIONE

Kimi Karki has become Peter Inverted. While he was with Reverend Bizarre, he continued to advance his second project, the prog rock band "Orne". In 2007, having left the "Reverend", he decided to embark on a new journey, leading Lord Vicar, transforming into "Inverted".

The insatiable desire to unleash his guitar led him to work on this further project, which clearly follows the footsteps of Reverend Bizarre. Indeed, Lord Vicar plays a rock-solid, powerful doom, born from a blend of Cathedral, Candlemass, and the Reverend himself. It is not the doom of My Dying Bride, nor the existentialist type of early Anathema.

"Fear no pain" is the first studio work, released in November 2008: a record where you will not find innovations, where you will not find any kind of upheaval of the doom genre. LV does not invent anything new, but rework it in an aggressive and convincing form, through very precise choices: doom metal with a strongly epic flavor and respectable durations. Essential in this "philosophy" is the six-string of "Peter Inverted", monopolizing the entire CD, sometimes even going beyond, as in the initial "Down the nails" and in "A man called horse", probably the two least successful songs of the platter. But to compensate for this flaw and to make the lack of originality of the proposal forgettable, the compelling and strongly pathos-laden rhythm of pieces such as the splendid "Pillars under water", "The last of the templars", and "The spartan" steps in.

The band from Turku (Finland) navigates themes such as occultism, history, religion, loss, and pain: the latter, in particular, catalyzes the final "The funeral pyre", the only song that veers away from the metallic tone of the remaining tracks: a piece closer to classic doom, where an acoustic arpeggio with a melancholy echo emerges, on which the singer Chritus (Christian Lindersson, formerly of Count Raven), paints perfect vocal lines. Praise goes to the singer, capable of adapting to the epic tones of the band but also skilled at changing register on several occasions. He reaches the pinnacle in the fourteen minutes of "The funeral pyre", the CD's highlight.

"Fear no pain" is a work devoid of experimental charge and unlikely to impress those who do not love the most classic and epic doom. Yet, in a genre that was once niche and now has become inflated, Lord Vicar's first album stands out for its overall high quality. A CD capable of sweeping away almost everything that record labels regularly present as the "new revelations".

1. "Down The Nails" (8:00)
2. "Pillars Under Water" (5:06)
3. "Born Of A Jackal" (7:21)
4. "The Last Of The Templars" (8:52)
5. "The Spartan" (10:36)
6. "A Man Called Horse" (10:04)
7. "The Funeral Pyre" (14:25)