SURTR – World Of Doom

As the Leaderslair.com site suggests, Surtr is: “… the fire demon and ruler of Muspelheim, who claims to be the oldest being in the nine worlds. He is also fated to be the last being in the universe. When Surtr takes his sword Twilight and lights it in the Eternal Flame, he will be given the power to raze the nine worlds. The murderer of Odin’s two brothers, Vili and Ve, Surtr must surely be considered both Odin’s and Asgard’s greatest enemy.” Sounds pretty neat, don’t you think? That same character was used in the Thor comic by Marvel. However, the debut album by the French band of the Doom Metal soldiers by the same name as the fire demon didn’t impress that much.

The gloomy World Of Doom displays a semi-harsh Doom Metal that bears a strong resemblance to the classic and fuzzy-like Doom Metal of the ’70s and early ’80s. There are hard references to Black Sabbath of the 70s along with the group Reverend Bizarre of the late ’90s. The epos that surrounds the album conveys the story of the fire demon, while creating a correlation to modern day social troubles. The idea itself is remarkable, however, not so much the case with the music.

Traditional Doom Metal, on most of its versions whether old or new, came in the form of slow tempo’ed (usually) suffocated riffs that still kept a wonderful epic aura. On World Of Doom, those mentioned attributes were recognized, but it seems the direction of the tunes had too many flaws.

Besides the poor production that essentially killed the vocals, the music, even for Doom Metal, was too static to bear. Same riffages went on and on until someone remembered that there are other riffs to play, and then the main riff was switched to a new one that was waiting to be suffocated like its former. Moreover, besides a static rhythm section, the lead section, while not including vocals, was under ice… absolutely nothing. As for the vocals, which were produced at an awful rate, most of the time it was hard to understand the words. The tribute for Reverend Bizarre showed that the vocalist, Jeff Maurer, could actually put on some good notes in the vein of older Doom bands, yet that wasn’t the case when performing the band’s originals. The band’s main hit on the album wasn’t even theirs. “Doom Over The World” was Surtr’s best performance, and although it’s a title that fits the album well, it was originally penned by Reverend Bizarre on their second album II: Crush The Insects. The theme is not everything if the music isn’t following and creating an interest, and Surtr put forth an average effort to present their music as something inspiring.

Tracklist

1. World of Doom – part I
2. World of Doom – part II
3. World of Doom – part III
4. Doom over the world (Reverend Bizarre cover)
5. World of Doom – part IV
6. World of Doom – part V

Lineup

Régis Beck: Drums
Julien Kuhn: Bass
Jeff Maurer: Guitar, Vocals