Album Review: The Crooked Whispers - Funeral Blues
Reviewed by Matthew Williams
If you like a band with an absolutely HUGE sound, then you are going to love this latest release from satanic psych doom quartet, The Crooked Whispers. It gives off the sort of evil vibes that you only get when watching the scariest of horror films and like them, can turn your body cold in an instant with one of its many killer riffs.
The band formed in 2020 during the global pandemic, and is made up from musicians hailing from Argentina and the United States, who all share the same love of the occult and black magic. 'Funeral Blues' was recorded over the course of two years in different studios across two continents, but when you listen to the songs, you can easily tell the influences of Black Sabbath and Venom.
It all begins with 'Suicide Castle' and it gives you a sense of what is about to be unleashed, with lots of evil, filthy sludge tones that just make you want to shake your head in a slow procession, but it’s Anthony Gaglia’s vocals that are most striking, and will no doubt provide a talking point, as they are very “black metal” in style, but does this really work with the music? Well, that’s for you to decide.
The vocal again is different on the next song 'Stay in Hell', where the doom sound seems to overpower the vocal, but the riffs from guitarist Federico Ramos are really tight, and the song flows along so well, before the title track is revealed and it’s a bit of cracker, with the band sticking to a tried and tested formula of slowed down, fuzzy distortion, with drummer Nicolas Taranto leading the way.
'When Nothing is Left', shows a bit of diversity from their trademark sound, with the tones being a bit more atmospheric, but if you close your eyes, you can imagine this being played in a sparsely lit, smoke filled room, just lost in your own thoughts. This is followed up by an intriguing riff at the start of 'Deathmaker' but it’s the rhythm section which dominates the song throughout, with bassist Ignacio De Tommaso driving the song, before the evil sound gets more….well, evil with 'Crippled Shadow', as it’s insanely dark, gloomy and sludgy.
The album in completed with 'Pleasant Death' and 'Bed of Bones' with the former having a bit more of an uplifting sound to it at the beginning, before it descends into another pit of misery, and the latter, gives another example of their talents with a haunting riff leading the way.
