Ah, I do so enjoy a good cup of Finnish Doom Metal every once in a while, and ORDOG has provided exactly that with their latest album "Trail For The Broken".
Formed in early 2005 by Aleksi and Valtteri who shared an interest in creating some decent, authentic Doom Metal, ORDOG has come a long way, with three Demo albums, and this, "Trail For The Broken", being their forth full length album.
The album starts off with "The Trail", introduced with a haunting piano melody, backed by layers of eerie effects that sends chills through your soul, leaving you feeling desperate, deserted, and alone in this frigid world, then towards the end, the coarsely distorted guitars fade in, chugging along, blending into the start of the next track. "Scythe" begins with a heavy marching rhythm which breaks into a rather Black Metal type of progression, and topped with vocals that much reminded me of the early SATYRICON vocal style. At around 2:30, this changes and the general mood of the song drops down to more of what I would expect from a band claiming to be Doom Metal. There is also the addition of a decent guitar solo, which builds the song up one last time into the more optimistic marching bridge, only to finally sink back down to the slower depressing hole that it tried to climb out of, and this sees the song to its grim end.

"The Swarm Of Abhorrence" Is a wonderfully slow and drudgy track, taking it's time, dragging you along with it, as it sinks lower and lower into the abyss. Aleksi makes use of some good deep growls, which works very well in contrast to the plain vocal style found throughout most of the song. About halfway through the track, there is an increase in momentum, and a powerful dark presence is felt.
I would have to say that my favorite track is "Enter The Void", I think mostly because it has some elements that are reminiscent of the old self titled BLACK SABBATH track.

On a whole, "Trail For The Broken" is a great album, making good use of varying vocal styles, and even some orchestral type elements. This variation is well balanced, just enough to keep things interesting, but never too obvious that it sounds random or out of place. Furthermore, there are many bands out there claiming to be Doom Metal, but they often don't seem to pull it off, however, ORDOG seem to capture it quite nicely. The only thing that I might mention as a negative point, is the over use of clean vocals, although they do work well, I think the deeper growls somehow fit far better.