Olde Crone – Olde Crone

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Olde Crone are a young epic doom band from England with Neil Fallon-esque vocals who are finally able to release a debut album after four years together and one demo recorded back in 2005. Long songs are their way; the shortest song on the album, the middle section of a three-part eponymous epic totalling just over 30 minutes, is still over seven minutes long. Four stand-alone tracks split up the self-titled centre-piece each between nine and thirteen minutes long. Norse Torch is an ultra-heavy pummelling, Blue Iris and Time To Burn add a touch of stoner rock to a complete set of doom moods, and Broken Reality is a true epic doom classic; ten minutes of shifting riffs and solos All three parts of Olde Crone seem to start and end part way through, fading into and out of riffs already in progress. The first part is the slowest and least interesting, the second has a drastic change of pace from a heavy first half to a clean, almost jazzy second half, and the third is faster and heavier for around eight minutes, then fades away to five minutes of near silence with sporadic spells of delicate clean guitar and bass. Very shortly after this album’s release the band split up, so Olde Crone is destined to become one of those out-of-print cult doom classics. The various members are now involved in other projects.

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Doom Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Olde Crone