After reading rave reviews about this album, I thought it's time for me to check what the buzz was all about, and boy we have something special in here. So, Italian Heavy - Doom Metal band THE OSSUARY released their 2^nd full length album "Southern Funeral" earlier this year and I can't wait to dig in.

"Walk into Sepulchral Haze" starts with an eerie keyboard work, before the eeriness is carried over by the fast paced guitar, and the Heavy music kicks in with the clean guttural vocals coming into play. After listening to it multiple times by now, I can say it is very catchy right from the get go, and the guitar solos and the drum beats are all just fine for the song, if not perfect. The highlight surely is the main guitar squeaky solo riff, but all in all it's a great start for the album.  "Maze of No Return" has a good mid-tempo Hard Rock tempo to it, and the lyrics and vocals really work perfectly with the tune and rhythm of the song. It sounds like a happy going train journey, but the lyrics are anything but happy. "Belphegor" has a good happy-go-jolly Stoner Metal vibe going with it, and its just bliss. And a special mention for the long fast guitar riff in the outro, nothing fancy, but just great stuff. "Southern Funeral" goes mello, but doesn't impress just as much as the faster songs in the album so far, even with its sludgy doomy parts towards the end.

"Eternal Pyre" is a fun song with groovy juicy riffs, and doesn't take itself too seriously, which I wish it did, but it maintains a mid-tempo sound, which might appeal to the masses. "Sleep Demon" swings between being mid-tempo to low-tempo, and has a general lacklustre vibe to it, which doesn't impress me one bit, although some might appreciate it for the artistic choices that the band have made here. The song does pick up pace towards the end, and sounds like a good song to jam in the band's live shows, but it falls short of being impressive here, considering some of the better songs on offer here. The album ends with "Under the Spell" and "Shadow of Plague", both which are much impressive songs albeit their lack of pace. The latter one, spanning 7:40 min and taking you to parallel universe with its 'trans Stoner Metal', as I would like to call it. They have some juice and aggressiveness in them, thanks to the guttural vocals. The atmospheric feel of the album hasn't seem to work as well as the band intended it to be. The riffs, vocals and drums are impressive as a whole and individually.

The 2^nd album for these folks, "Southern Funeral" does offer some interesting things to the intended audience, but it does disappoint in few phases through the middle. But all in all, it's a fine album to dig, for the seasoned fans of the genres of Heavy, Stoner and Sludge Metal.