Keeper – MMXIV

July 5, 2014 • PlasticSkull Records

Keeper delivers some excruciating, pounding doom metal that's some of the filthiest I've heard. The grimy distortion on downtuned-to-hell guitars (that low bass string must not even be remotely taut at this point), sputtering vocals, and echoing production make the album almost uncomfortable to listen to—although that's kind of a good thing in this case.

The songs are all quite long and sprawling without a whole lot of real structure to them, so the music can be a bit hard to follow, especially in the slower parts. It's not my preferred way to do doom; I like having some organization and clarity to the songwriting, but MMXIV goes off in all sorts of directions, losing me easily. Sometimes, when things pick up speed, it's not quite so bad and I can get into the rhythmic grooving they do in some parts, like "Perception/Prescription".

On the whole, it's really not a bad album. It's not something I'll put on often, as I simply don't get into doom much and this album doesn't do it quite to my tastes anyway. But I still feel like there's something worth looking into here, at least for established doom fans.