Doom Side Of The Moon Review 2017

There is something special about this album. In it's original form, Pink Floyd wrote the perfect concept album, about a world gone mad.Whether it be lust, greed, what have you, the human race's ignorance is clearly going to be mankinds biggest downfall, and it's happening all around and everyone is oblivious to it. That album was written and released in 1973.The fact that the words still ring true today is sad, sick, and scary. The album, musically, was a pyschedelic/prog rock masterpiece, spacey guitars and sounds, ambience, atmosphere, and some of the earliest electronic music ever used. Groundbreaking at the time, this album was on the top 100 US albums chart from 1973-1988. That, in of itself, should speak of the magnitude, and the reason, that, in 2017, A guy from Stoner Doom Metal band The Sword, decided stoned one day, that he wanted to hear a heavy version of the Pink Floyd track "Time", so he decided to embark on covering the whole album in a stoner, droney, doomy, heavy, fuzzy way, and still make it true enough to the original that it achieves what seems to be impossible, the perfect way to cover a classic prog rock album. I assure you, whether or not you like it as much as the original, it literally has found the perfect balance of staying true to the music your covering, and also making it your own. 


Starting with a different, more organic, less climactic Speak to Me, Breathe starts off with acoustic guitar, and an electric doing the lead parts, and theres a hammond or some type of fuckin keyboard making it pastoral and spacey, it is sublime, absolutely. Less is more, the impact on this is intense, yet light as a feather. No drums, not needed. It is incredible how they captured the spirit of the album. 
On The Run starts with drums gutiars and bass just bashing away, and a keyboard starts up in the background, and it almost sounds like they are using the same type of synth to do the main part, while most excess noises are creating with guitar feedback, perfectly controlled, and carefully placed. In a way, this has more of a human feel as an album, and less futuristic than Floyd's original, and that is in no way an insult or degrading remark to Roger Waters and co, it is simply an observation with using guitars feeding back instead of computers. It's so fucking good.
Time starts with the same strong structure, just a different genre. Literally sounds like  Black Sabbath playing Pink Floyd. But it is so perfect, and sounds right. It is masterfully done, and it is a banger. Crushingly heavy, and it even includes a saxophone humming away with the chaos. This is like, just so dark and beautiful and psychedelic, man. The guitars sound so raw. No special effects, just a fuckin' guitar plugged into an amp and turned up to 10, the way nature intended metal to be in the first place. The vocals are quite on par, and done well. There isn't way too much thought put into this project it seems, it just naturally came, and my mind is blown. The guitar solo doesn't have the intergallactic David Gilmoure shine, but it still is as effective, and done so well, if you close your eyes, you can see yourself laughing as the world burns. It's that kind of solo. the reprise of breathe, done with drums, bass, organ, and vocals, is a wonderful way to continue it. Almost has a Deep Purple vibe to a degree, and leads us into The Great Gig In The Sky, which begins with that classic riff, done on a psychedelic sounding piano, so beautiful and dark, the voices from the original album, arent there, but it still is just as beautiful, and macabre sounding to a degree, melancholy if you will.The saxophone, which is familiar, from the original, but it is done differently, but has the same effect. Instead of Claire Torry's haunting, operatic vocals, the saxophone has a solo and place to shine here, playing those haunting notes that Torry improvised on the spot, death has never sounded so groovy. The drums also blast away, making it sound like your being warped into a black whole, and it speeds up and that fucking blues riff is played on guitar, Money starts with a clean guitar, and builds up into this heavy, psychedelic tour de force version, singing about the global consumerism, and the evil of the almighty dollar. This song, is relevant in today's society, especially in America, the scenic views and beautiful nature, has been turned into one giant fucking shopping mall, and Americans are just fine with that, too stupid and blind to realize the world they're destroying. This song brings up images and feelings of that nature, and the groove, with the cowbell at the "first class traveling" bit, is a brilliant touch. The mellow part is now hectic and fast and groovy and heavy, bee bopping, not before a breakdown, and the keyboard playing the first half of what is usually the guitar solo in the original, and then it gets heavy again, and the guitar starts to fucking rip and soaring through the atmosphere. Then it comes full circle to that slow, dirge version of that famous bluesy bass lick, and the song closes out on a jammy, trancey, trippy passage.
It then leads into the clean, beautiful guitar passage of Us And Them, a clean electric and an acoustic, with the atmospheric keys going, with a bit of Piper At The Gates Of Dawn-esque effects and qualities. No drums as the verse is sung here, more spacey and light than the original, sung with the same, dismal, depressing delivery, hopeless, then theres a bit of chugging with the keyboard for the first chorus, and goes back into this trance, floaty type of feel to this song. The echoes on the verses aren't as dramatic, and it just flows as it's own, but it's giving that same blissful feeling that hearing the original on vinyl when i was 14. On the second verse, the sax is there, and the band goes full out doom, but still keeping the feel the same. The solo is done so differently, but wonderfully. It's just uplifting, like you imagine what your soul dying sounds like(as morbid as that may sound, think about that peaceful, weightless feeling, and imagine that part of it.) Then it gets heavy again for a proper end to the solo, and goes back to the same verse, only with the drums and bass in this time around. The old man dies for asking the price of tea and a slice, and we're onto Any Colour You Like, which begins with a very hippie Sabbath-esque kind of jam, a metalicized Grateful Dead like vibe if you will, which is more interesting to me musically, then the original. A psychedelic sounding wind begins to blow, and the guitars slowly stop and the bass and drums stop slowly, and Brain Damage begins on a chugging, almost punky riff, but it works, with the same song structure, it has a different vibe, but its closely related. Some nice , weird vocals, and keyboard notes, making it errie. The almost, church like chorus, is done wonderfully with amps blasting of thick, warm guitars. Eclipse sounds exactly as it should, amps blasting, organ going, drums pounding, vocals sounding almost like a last speech as the world implodes, seeing the fucking asteroid headed straight for you, as you look at the skies one last time, "and everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon...." is a great way to describe today's society. This rendition ends with a ringing guitar fading out slowly. Perfect, phenomenal, groovy, heavy, and spacey. Whats not to fucking love here? These guys paid the perfect metal homage to one of rock's greatest, most prolific, and one of the most mysterious bands in history, and they did it well. This comes out on August 4th, go grab yourself one!