review: Lamassu

Lamassu

Into the Empty

2 September 2019

Lamassu is a doom band from Australia. The music is traditional doom: heavy, simple riffs of the late 1960s/early 1970s hard-blues rock and psychedelic rock played in a contemporary style. The style is considerably catchy and should be friendly to American fans who like the hard/classic rock on the radio in this country. The riffs are accessible, and the guitar seems like it is just one guitar laying down the slabs of riffs, even though they have two guitarists. In some segments, there is a second guitar laying down some hooks on top of the rhythm, but these musicians are careful to keep the songs relatively simple. The songs are kept accessible and one listen will pretty much give a solid idea of how it is. The sound quality is pretty good, considering that this is an independent recording.

Fans of this type big-riff heaviness rock already know that these types of bands have bad vocals, but the fans love it, anyway. The fans usually find ways to get around, tolerate or even enjoy the farm animal noises, the big-belly constipation-style hollering, the angry-person yelling, the bear-and-hound growling barking and the drug-addict screaming and all those neat things that singing-disabled people do to endear themselves to the cult of psychedelic/stoner/doom/sludge rock. Lamassu will surprise some fans because the Australians have a vocalist that sings for real. The tone of the voice stays in an upper range as the normal singing voice for the verses and then it goes higher for the choruses or certain segments/moments or words. Fans of doom heaviness will like the music, and many more other rock fans will go for the singing.

The lyrics seem alright, from what we can tell without having the lyrics available, although the lyrics or song titles could be better. Song titles like “Chokehold Companion,” “Killing Someone,” and “I Die” seem not the smarter choice. “Killing Someone”? Not the best title, but the title “Under the Watch of a Crow” is much, much better and leaves more to the imagination.

Frankly, for American rock audiences, compared to the radio rock of the airwaves in the USA—Creed, Disturbed, Ozzy, Priest, Sabbath, Alice in Chains, Metallica, Soundgarden, Megadeth and that type of heaviness—this Australian band is not so different from that hard/classic rock. It’s in the same range of heaviness. The fact that they have good singing should only make the band more appealing to wider audiences. If there’s anything as a sticking point, it won’t be the singing. Having said, the band could stand to work on making the songs more melodic, catchier and just generally more direct, and less meandering. Sometimes the space/desert/alternative rock vibes take the songs a bit too off course, and make them a bit too long, and the rocking gets forgotten a bit too often.

lamassuband.bandcamp.com/album/into-the-empty

facebook.com/LamassuBand/