Realmbuilder – Summon The Stone Throwers

site | label | buy

New Yorker duo Realmbuilder worship “epic metal”; tales of battles, fantasy worlds and mythology told to doom-tinged metal riffs and heavily influenced by the late ’70s/early ’80s work of bands like Cirith Ungol and Manilla Road. Some have queried the “doom” tag being applied, the band themselves making sure they state they are not a doom band, and if you take doom metal from the times of Candlemass and Cathedral onwards, when doom started to get a lot heavier, that’s a fair question, but that’s not the period Realmbuilder are aiming at. Go back further, to the likes of Pentagram, and mix those kinds of riffs with the retro-stoner sensibilities of Witchcraft and the early ’80s fantasy lyrical pomp of, say, Dio, or more recently 3 Inches of Blood, and that’s Realmbuilder’s sound. That, and half the tracks on this album, “epic” subject matter or not, are pure doom (The Tarnished Crown, Colossal Glaciers, Summon The Stone Throwers). Some of them could do with a little more direction to avoid repetition (Ninety-Nine Raids, Silver Ziggurat), but for the most park Summon The Stone Throwers is packed with catchy riffs, lyrical sillyness and thoroughly doomy vocals. It’s not metal for serious listener, but it is metal for the fun (and glory, no doubt) of metal, and there actually aren’t many better; this, at least musically, achieves something a lot more genuine than most.

Written by Andy Lye
More: Uncategorized,