Album Review: Count Raven - The Sixth Storm
Reviewed by Richard Oliver
New albums from Count Raven are a rare occurrence these days. The Swedish doom band last released an album in 2009 with Mammon’s War and prior to that the last one was Messiah Of Confusion in 1996. With a wait of 12 years the big question is was it worth it?
For those who don’t know Count Raven they are a Swedish doom metal band who formed in the late 80’s and are most well known for their first three albums which are seen as classics in doom loving circles. The band (like the vast majority of doom metal bands) are heavily influenced by the mighty Black Sabbath with frontman, guitarist and keyboardist Dan “Fodde” Fondelius having a more than passing resemblance to a certain Ozzy Osbourne in the vocals department. Here on The Sixth Storm the band pick up where they left off in 2009 with another album of monolithic Sabbathian doom metal with Herculean riffs, slow tempos and a bleak atmosphere.
This is a hefty album with nine songs spread out across 73 minutes and unfortunately that is one of the downfalls of The Sixth Storm being that it is just a bit overlong and at times a bit plodding. Doom metal generally as a genre takes its time but a lot of these songs seem to be long for the sake of it without the material to justify the lengths. It’s not bad though as doom metal (especially the vintage sort) is all about the riffs in my opinion and there are plenty of belters. Songs such as The Curse, The Ending and album highlight Oden have these huge riffs that demand the air guitar be dusted off but there are a couple of songs where the riffs take a backseat and the atmosphere and emotion take centre stage such as the strings-led Heaven’s Door and the piano driven ballad Goodbye which closes the album.
Doom metal has a long association with long song lengths and there are some songs on here which justify their duration but also some which don’t and end up becoming a bit tiresome. With a bit of trimming this album would have been vastly improved but I suppose with a 12 year gap Count Raven are making up for lost time and giving us as much new music as possible. Despite some of my negativity in this review this is definitely not a bad album. It ticks all the boxes you would want in a classic doom metal album - great riffs and lots of Sabbath worship - but it just needs some editing to be even better.
