When we are dealing with Doom Metal, we must always take extreme care, and must have our mind opened to the strangest ideas you can think. This must be clear in our minds because you can find great musical diversity into the genre. How else can you explain that many bands such as CANDLEMASS, WITH THE DEAD, PENTAGRAM and many others are under the same label? So, never say "this is not Doom Metal", or something like that. You can be throwing away treasures like the Swedish quartet THE DOOMSDAY KINGDOM. Fortunate we are, because they are releasing their first album, called "The Doomsday Kingdom".

They are into a more traditional way of Doom Metal, in the same vein of WITCHFINDER GENERAL, SAINT VITUS, PENTAGRAM, and of course, inspired by our forefathers BLACK SABBATH. But they have some very good melodic moments (as you will find in some parts of the album, as on "The Silence"). But even following a way that isn't new, they have a strong and intense musical personality that makes their songs sound really great to our ears, and seduces us with a heavy dose of musical weight and somber melodies.

But one thing: the band's bassist, nicknamed The Doomfather, is no one else than Leif Edling, mentor and mastermind behind CANDLEMASS, KRUX and AVATARIUM. The sound quality of "The Doomsday Kingdom" was conceived to be clean and modern, because the band sounds like a newborn child, fresh and filled with energy. But of course the elements that are necessary for a Doom Metal band are here: heavy weight and excellent melodic lines. On the album, we can see an excellent work done in terms of composition of the songs. Again I must say that it's just the most traditional way into Doom Metal you can find, but it's because the band don't want to reinvent the wheel that the album is amazing.

The catchy melodic lines and guitar riffs of "Silent Kingdom", the grasping heavy weight and slow paced tempos of "Never Machine" (very bitter atmosphere with such melodies is a very hard feature to find), the oppressive heavy atmosphere that permeates "A Spoonful of Darkness" and its somber melodic lines (and very good vocals as well), that sharp and darkened melodic feeling that we all know from the past and that fills "The Sceptre", the catchy tempos of "Hand of Hell" and the melodic and experimental insight of "The God Particle" can be named as their finest moments. But it's not a surprise, because this album was conceived by a Doom Metal genius and his partners in crime.

"The Doomsday Kingdom" is a great album, and one of the best releases of the year.