Keen Of The Crow - Hyborea review
| Band: | Keen Of The Crow |
| Album: | Hyborea |
| Style: | Death doom metal |
| Release date: | 2007 |
| A review by: | Jeff |
01. Prologue
02. Where Dead Kings Lie
03. Hyborea
04. Left For The Wolves
05. The Eye Of The Serpent
06. To Reach Emptiness
07. Burning Away
08. Valeria
09. Seeking Fury, Becoming Wrath
10. Stygian Black Lotus
11. Epilogue
Warning, warning!!! If you pretend to like Doom Metal and didn't even know the existence of Keen Of The Crow until today, I hope that my review will be like a revelation for you. No doubt, we're (only in March) already in front of one of the best Doom/Death Metal albums of the year! Featuring ex Morgion's bassist and drummer, Keen Of The Crow will probably become one of the sensations of the style. Why? Well, just because our band from USA found the way to create for their first album a magnificent Doom, deep and full of emotions. Believe me, you cannot miss this album!
The music of Keen Of The Crow is Doom /Death Metal a la Morgion, Mourning Beloveth or My Dying Bride. With an alternance of heavy slow riffs with strong Death vocals and ultimate break with amazing clean vocals and superb arpeggios, we're in front of a really beautiful Doom Metal. The eleven songs of the album are long (between six and nine minutes) slow in general of course, that's Doom after all, but they're extremely powerful. I'm not talking about rhythm or anything like that, it's just that the songs, probably in reason of the really good interpretation of the band, are able to give you shivers. They're strong, and extremely emotional, the music of Keen Of The Crow is deep and not so easy and even if it's Doom Death, sometime we can even think to bands like November Doom or even Opeth (in reason of the different progressions that we can find in the songs of Keen Of The Crow).
It's hard to find something bad on this release, the musicians are all really good, the singer Dan Ochoa is able to sing with two different good voices (a clean and Death one) and all in all, with its great production, "Hyborea" is full of hits. "Where Dead Kings Lie" with its break or "Valeria" which is disturbing dark ambiance are two good examples of the great quality of the album. And don't worry, the other songs are not worst, at the opposite this album is really homogeneous so you can expect 56 minutes of pure happiness.
"Hyborea" is a pure success. Of course, don't expect some funeral Doom or some extreme Doom here, no we're in front of classic and not so hard of access Doom. But really, this album is a bomb which remind me the quality of the albums of Mourning Beloveth (and that's a good sing!). If you like Doom and want to listen to something else than Swallow the Sun or My Dying Bride, I really recommend you this first album which is probably one of the best releases in the style since a lot of time.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 9 |
| Songwriting: | 9 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 9 |
Written by Jeff | 27.03.2007
Comments
Comments: 18
Visited by: 51 users
| Jeff Freaky Admin Elite Posts: 7078  |
Marcel can confirm it, It's a masterpiece... Buy this album please.
---- Come with us to Hellfest 2011!
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| Lucas Mr. Noise Elite Posts: 13427  |
I heard it and it is really awesome. Such a shame, that recent news about the bandmembers. Was just getting into them.
---- SLUDGE. DOOM. DEATH. Wait, what?  "The reason I'm running for president is because I can't be Bruce Springsteen." - Barack Obama
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| Christ_13 Account deleted |
Christ_13
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I download the album today in part because of the entusiastic review and it seems very good.. cool!!! 
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071  |
This is a brilliant album, I don't think any other doom album will top this one this year. Hyborea shows you how weak Hope by Swallow the SUn really is. This is a pure masterpiece. But why did Lyrinan have to spoil my perfectly good SUnday at work while I was listening to this by telling me that 3 of the 5 mebers (Ochoa amongst them) left the band on Friday 23rd of March and thereby disbanding the band? SHit, album was released on the 19th and ONLY 4 dya s later this band is no more. I know it is way too early but this album will most probably deserve to win the doom metal category.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996 
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| Götter avatar of misery Elite Posts: 12300  |
Okay, I listened to the album and found nothing so special about it. It's definitely not comparable to Morgion. Well, there is one special thing - most or all of the album appears to be Conan The Barbarian-themed, complete with sound clips from the film, which is a good thing in my book.
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| Nefarious Doom Knight Staff Posts: 5548  |
Agree 100% Definetly my favourite doom album of the year so far. I just cant stop listening to this 
---- "FUCK!!! You're the fucking 5th person asking me in an interview about the woman in the bathtub?The problem is that I AM the fucking person in the bathtub, and I AM a fucking MAN, for fuck's sake! I hate you all!" ~ Herr Morbid
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| Asitis Posts: 201  |
And this review is yet another one confirming my need to buy it 
---- The silent moment, right before the dusk fades away I open my eyes, but the darkness stays
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| Jeff Freaky Admin Elite Posts: 7078 |
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| Susan Smeghead Elite Posts: 6941  |
Yes, this album is magnificent. So many different sounds winding down together in the land of doom. Ahhhh  It's definitely as good as Jeff says; go buy it!! Too bad about the band's recent drama, it would have been so easy to predict great things from them!
---- "A life all mine Is what I choose At the end of my days" --The Gathering "A Life All Mine" from Souvenirs
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071 |
Written by Götter on 28.03.2007 at 08:46 I don't know what sort of version you heard, but on the cd I got there are no sound clips from the film. It does feature rearrangements of some of the film music though.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| Götter avatar of misery Elite Posts: 12300 |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 02.04.2007 at 16:05 Actually, there are sound clips. Such as the one in the end of the movie where Thulsa Doom speaks to the crowds in front of his temple. It was in one of the songs. And there were others too if I remember correctly.
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071 |
Written by Götter on 02.04.2007 at 16:52 Mmm, I'd better relisten the album then. Becauise after having played it about ten times last weekend I still can't remember coming across sound clips from the movie.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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| Götter avatar of misery Elite Posts: 12300 |
Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 02.04.2007 at 16:54 Well, I've seen the movie probably at least ten thousand times or so, thus I can detect anything Conan a mile away. 8)
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| Marcel Hubregtse Grumpy Old Fuck Elite Posts: 40071 |
Written by [user id=5080] on 05.04.2007 at 21:21 Musically it has nothing to do with Morgion that's true. But Hyborea is still death/doom. Not standard dath/dom but death/doom nonetheless. The Morgion is connection is due to the rhythm section of Morgion being the rhythm section here too.
---- Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.) 05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996
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