I never understood and will never accept that a band must have a musical work that is so dirty that we can't have the clear idea of what the band is trying to do. To be honest: in Doom/Stoner Metal, this mix of a slow and bitter form of music with a nasty and raw sound is hard to be swallowed even by experienced Metal fans. You need to be good to avoid all the problems that this mix of Metal genres brought. The Swedish trio FIREBREATHER, a beginner, show that they need to improve, because their first work, the album "Firebreather", is truly boring.

Imagine hearing fur long and slow-paced songs on 32 minutes. To make things worse, the moldy and raw sound quality of the work doesn't help at all. The endless repetitions of some instrumental parts turn it all into a boring and wearing experience. Even the most patient fan will have trouble dealing with such form of music. As I wrote above, this raw and rusty sound is really annoying to our ears. Ok, I know that the fans of this specific genre can love, but they could have done something more melodic and clean (just a bit), because such sound quality turns the experience into an unnecessary suffering.

Along with that, the band lacks boldness to disobey rules. Can it be done with shorter songs, and without such raw sound quality? Yes, it can, because music has no limits and frontiers, and you must obey only to yourself. And let me tell you a thing: good ideas can be heard on the album. "Fire Foretold" has some good moments on guitars, but to bitter and boring, and the same problems can be heard on "Emerald Eyes" (where drums show a good technique, but bass guitar seems absent due the strong distortion used). And "The Ice Lord" shows the very same problems, like "Release the Lava" (besides this one shows good melodies). It's a loss of time!

Try it again, for "Firebreather" really is a trial to the ears!