review: Cirith Ungol

Cirith Ungol

Forever Black

Metal Blade Records

24 April 2020

“How many of you would work 22 years, 5 nights a week for free, this after putting in an 8 hour day job during just to pursue an ever elusive dream that is somehow always out of reach." Rob Garven, 2010 (Cirith Ungol drummer)

The 1981 debut by Cirith Ungol (1972-1992; 2015-) and subsequent albums were ahead of their time or just too weird for the audiences, or born too late, or all three. In the 1980s there were a lot of rules, uniforms, and the bands followed those rules. This California band sounded too proggy-doomy-fantasy at a time when there was a lot of super low IQ druggy Los Angeles bands, drunk-jerk/narrow-minded thrash bands, and the drugged-out big bands were obsessed with being as famous as the King of Pop. The biggest metal bands were unhappy with albums sales in the millions. They wanted TENS of millions. This Tolkien-loving band was something like one third prog, one third doom, one third heavy metal, and just too much for the rules that said: be glam, be thrash or be stadium metal. The songs would sort of go sideways, and go bluesy doom prog and just sound unorthodox for the young minds expecting either Van Halen or Metallica or Priest-like songs. Poor devils, the listeners! They did not know what to do with this band. To top it all off, the singer had a slightly strange yelly-wildman-in-the-woods quality; not super bizarre, but certainly not a party metal singer, for sure.

Decades later enough fans have remained stubborn by keeping the name alive. It turns out that more people are ready for the music now. It doesn’t sound that unusual today, given that nowadays pig squeals, accordions, grunting, growling, guitarless metal are real things, and there is even a capella metal, mariachi metal, and blues doom is a thing, Swedish bands make retro proto metal in unusually large quantities, and there is jazz metal, to name but a few of the things that metal bands do today. Well, well, well, good ole literature professors Cirith Ungol are not so weird now!

It the 1980s it seemed like the band had not gotten the memo that said:

“Attention all metal bands,

For the 1980s you are required to sound only like Van Halen/Ratt/Motley Crue, Metallica/Slayer/Megadeth, or Priest/Scorpions/Maiden. Write lyrics only about metal, the news, parties or religion. Drop all prog sounds right now. Drop all hard blues doom guitar sounds now. Your public image must be: a cool alcoholic, an awesome druggy, a party person or an evil, tough, sick jerk. Do not give your band a strange name that no one knows how to pronounce. No Tolkien names allowed! No literary album covers, either.”

The above memo went out, but this band never received it. If they received it, they grabbed the paper, rolled it up into a ball, and they threw it in a trash can.

It is now 2020 and the band has finally ended their studio silence. The metal world is much more ready for this music: classic heavy metal with a bit of prog and doom vibes. In some of the guitar playing you will hear a bit of that hard rocking blues proggy heavy metal of the 1970s. In addition, given the passage of time, the singing is a bit lower, and sounds as good as ever in its own peculiar, unique, cult way, but less screechy than in the 1980s. The band basically broke up because it seemed like nobody cared about their music. It took decades, but the new chapter of the band is now in the process of being written. Here is the evidence. Believe it or not, Ripley.

Cirith Ungol "Legions Arise" Lyric Video (OFFICIAL)

Cirith Ungol "Before Tomorrow" (OFFICIAL)

cirithungol.bandcamp.com