Orchid
Capricorn

Personally, I've been waiting for a work like this for quite some time: with trepidation, with anxiety, with hope. It's that bolt from the blue that if you've lived on "bread and Black Sabbath," it shakes you and brings you back to the murky sounds of Iommi's stinky basements. Because Black Sabbath have profoundly (perhaps too much) influenced an entire musical world: one that, echoing the first cries of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, gave birth to a dark, legendary universe filled with mysticism, which became the fortune and distinctive characteristic of early metal music.

The Californian Orchid are one of the many acts born within the aesthetic, stylistic, and musical imagination of the Black Sabbath. So, is their offering unoriginal? If we stay within the labels and genres, the answer is inevitably yes, although these four shady figures also manage to draw here and there from fellow Californians Kyuss and the less exaggerated and more "vintage" doom (Texans The Sword can be elucidative in this sense). What manages to surprise about "Capricorn," their first studio album (February 2011), is the intrinsic quality of the tracks, but also the knowledge of the subject matter. Orchid know what they're doing, and despite the Sabbathian recycling, they manage to pull out compelling, varied, and rotten enough tracks. "Eyes behind the wall" serves as the calling card with its heavy metal soaked with seventies reminiscences: it's interesting to note, beyond the musicians' performance, Theo Mindell's vocal timbre, finally a singer who seems to have a personal idea on how to interpret the genre, without mimicking either Messiah Marcolin or Ozzy.

All nine tracks on the CD are of considerable quality, set in that atmosphere of lost hard 'n' heavy that never disappoints. From the title track's chorus to the solemn and ponderous stride of "Black funeral", from the fungi-like intro of "Down into the earth" (NIB?), to the doom of "He who walks alone" ending with the space stoner/doom of "Cosmonaut of three": everything exudes the cursed scent of seventies mysticism. To complete the picture, finally comes the missing piece: the prehistoric psychedelia of the concluding ballad "Albatross", the final seal on an almost perfect work.

"Capricorn" is a chapter that any lover of doom should try to obtain, as it succeeds in reprising with modern sounds and a more "polished" conception the music of bands like Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus, and to a lesser extent Kyuss. The main criticism that will be directed at this work is its tendency to look too much into the past, without innovating, without adding anything new to an already "ancient" and stale genre. All true: but "Capricorn" is one of the best "revival doom" works of recent years. Kudos to them.

1. "Eyes Behind The Wall" (7:13)
2. "Capricorn" (4:40)
3. "Black Funeral" (6:28)
4. "Masters Of It All" (6:37)
5. "Down Into The Earth" (6:25)
6. "He Who Walks Alone" (6:49)
7. "Cosmonaut Of Three" (5:44)
8. "Electric Father" (7:20)
9. "Albatross" (5:54)