Band:	Apothecary
Album:	Drifting Towards The Ancients
Style:	Death doom metal
Release date:	April 25, 2015
A review by:	Auntie Sahar

01. Fortune Doesn't Smile On The Damned [feat. Kayla Smalley]
02. Dawn On Me
03. No Void To Feed On
04. Gamma Soul
05. Into The Cauldron

So about a month ago, a little-known band from the States called Apothecary contacted me, asking me if I'd like to review an album of theirs. After ruling out my initial theory that the band was simply my older self sending recordings to my younger self from the future, I sat down for some music that, while somewhat trite, nonetheless has a lot of potential lurking within it.

Drifting Towards The Ancients, the debut effort from Apothecary, is a death doom album containing a lot of that second one and very, very little of the first one. Being predominantly doom, as one could imagine, the music here is crunchy, heavy, and at times even surprisingly catchy (see "Dawn On Me" especially). At times the rhythmic pulse of the doom gives way to some more melodic interludes that are quite relaxed and airy, most notably towards the middle of "Gamma Soul." Though these sections are often brief, the transition between them and the thicker, more riff-heavy tone that dominates is smooth, natural, and well executed. The album is definitely a bit of a grower in this respect: the more you listen to those shifts between heavy and melodic, the more you come to appreciate how well the band has this technique down.

The death metal side of things, however, is where Apothecary begin to encounter some issues. Other than the presence of some deep, guttural growls, this side of the band's personality is virtually absent on Drifting Towards The Ancients, and as a result, it feels rather underdeveloped and somewhat unnecessary in the composition as a whole. When taking the clean vocals on the album into consideration, powerful outbursts that could fit splendidly in an epic doom band, the growls by contrast feel rather weak and uninspired, and raise the question of where exactly Apothecary were trying to go with this aspect of their sound.

Drifting Towards The Ancients, while not a bad release, would quite likely do much better with either the expansion upon, or the all out elimination of, its death metal elements. Preferably the latter; in a way the growls here feel as if they're holding the album back, and are simply not needed when considering how well everything else fits together without them. As a whole, this debut of Apothecary would probably be a lot more enjoyable as a purely doom album, even if not a highly original one, as the band have a much better grasp on that sound and are clearly more comfortable with it. Final ruling here? Many good ideas at work, but the "not so good" ones could use a little refinement.

Go have a peek.