How Bizarre
From the land that has a musical palette of metal ranging from the goth pop of HIM to the downright heavy thrash metal of Children Of Bodom; Finland has arguably one of the most diverse metal scenes in the world. Now from the town of Turku comes Reverend Bizarre.
Reverend Bizarre's sound lends itself to the mighty doom bands like Sleep, Candlemass and The Obsessed who refused to accept that Black Sabbath was not cool anymore in the faux pas decade that was the eighties.
'Doom over The World' sounds like a rather large tortoise on acid whilst laying its hands on a Les Paul guitar. 'The Devil Rides Out' has a groove similar to Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song' but with a better guitar solo. The clean vocals of Albert Witchfinder create a mellow sound whilst making it still sound really out there. Then comes the mighty 13 minute 'Slave Of Satan', which has managed to top the Finnish charts at number 2- I kid you not! 'Council Of Ten' is so eerie it doesn't shiver up your spine; it runs a rusty nail down your vertebrae and caves your skull in .
It doesn't take a genius to figure out what Reverend Bizarre's songs are about judging from the titles like 'Cromwell' or 'Fucking Wizard' and the mighty Sabbath influence almost has a god like presence.
With the slowed down tempos associated with American stoner metal bands, it is interesting to see that doom metal is still alive, although it sounds like it can wake the dead. 'Crush The Insects' is certainly the best doom metal this side of Candlemass or Cathedral.