ALBUM REVIEW: Hall Of Maati – Crestfallen Queen

Doom, as a genre, is one of those styles of music that lends itself well to being a great musical base for progressive flourishes, with many bands over the years messing with the formula and taking the music into exciting new territories. CRESTFALLEN QUEEN are a great example of a band pushing doom in some very interesting and atmospheric directions without fully stripping away the recognisable ingredients in the genre’s classic sound. Their debut full-length, 2019’s Queen Of Swords, is a prime example of this, incorporating classic rock, folk and even a few harsher extreme metal tropes to make for an album that possesses a distinct doom flavour whilst not being a carbon copy of many of the genre’s giants. Their latest EP, Hall of Maati, is a continuation of this sound, but develops the music’s more engrossing parts far more prominently.

Eclipse Of Truth is a brilliantly layered, slow burning track. It opens with a haunting combo of acoustic guitar and keyboards which quickly shifts into a far more robust and traditional doom sound, with chunky, groove-laden guitar hooks, domineering drums and sonorous, dramatic vocals that allow this song to take a more ominous and dark turn. The song’s second half sees the music take on a more acoustic, almost folkish aspect, gradually re-introducing the headier, more melodic guitars into the mix as it develops. It essentially makes this lengthy track, at its core, a song comprised of two distinct halves. This is a fantastic start to the record, combining all the best elements of the classic doom metal sound with subtle progressive flourishes that add plenty of character to a tried and tested, yet thoroughly effective, formula.

The dissonant ambience of the first track’s final moments bleeds seamlessly into The Seventh Hour. This offering boasts a generous classic/occult rock influence in amongst the doom, with hypnotic guitar work, dense basslines and thunderous, primal percussive drumming. On top of this, the soaring, bombastic vocal deliveries paint a vivid picture to go with the excellent, eclectic approach of the music. Much like the record’s opener, it’s a great piece of music that morphs from its reserved and softer initial motif to a much bulkier and grandiose sound, tying together a variety of components that add an imaginative and slightly experimental edge to proceedings without ever really stepping away fully from the doom metal roots of this record. It also manages to glide from one section to the next with far more ease than the preceding track does.

Although the more progressive elements at play on here are far more hesitant and subdued than on many of doom metal’s more experimental outer reaches, this EP is brilliant for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, the musicianship itself it solid, and manages to shift from one idea to the next seamlessly more often than not. As a result, it’s an exceptionally cinematic and hypnotic record, and it’s much easier to get drawn into the music than it is with a lot of doom acts. With any luck, whatever the band has in store in the future, they’ll build on the ideas laid down here even further, hopefully with more adventurous experimentation on offer, because the folk elements and harsher gutturals vocals, when they came into the picture, worked extremely well.

Rating: 8/10

Hall Of Maati is out now via Vocem Interiorem Manifestations.

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