See It Burn - Desolation Overture

See It Burn's debut album "Desolation Overture" is i believe to be a self-release from the band and its a 4 part seething, crawling slab of Ambient, Atmospheric Doom with a Industrial edge. The album is split in four sections titled from Act I to Act IV, the two piece band made up of John Hoskison-Parkin and Glenn Boddice have created something not what you would call unique but this is incredibly heavy stuff. They have thick down tuned sludge guitars mixed with atmospheric sounds all back up by industrial sounding percussion. What is a bit different is the range of influences on display here, you can everything from Electric Wizard, Earth, Sunn O))), Godflesh to Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull. "Act I" begins with with a haunting intro before the real doom is unleashed with a bellowing groan, the heavy - laden sludge filled riff comes and then you get some industrial percussive noises that sound like machine gun fire. The crawling track is now on its way, but moving at a snail pace of course. Sort of like a soundtrack to your worst nightmare, this track is truly creepy and at times makes your flesh crawl. The guitar work is of the drone variety with huge chords that ring out inducing a hypnotic like state for the listener. The track comes to sudden stop after 13 plus minutes of droning doom that leaves you feeling kind of claustrophobic. "Act II" wont excatly lift your spirits either, the same mood and vibe continues. Its a little one - dimensional but the haunting atmosphere is something that will either leave you in a trance or make you feel somewhat on edge.

"Act III" adds a medieval folk twist to the album with a spoken word intro and the slight change in atmosphere is a welcome one. Keeping the same mood going for a entire album would be overkill and thankfully "See It Burn" saw that by adding in something that is still total crawling,seething droning doom but it takes the album in a slightly different direction. The main feature of this piece is the almost chanting growling vocal sound heard in the background. Creepy as hell but also very effective in making a sound that is both atmospheric but also more musical than the previous two tracks. By the time you get to "Act IV" you will either be digging the heavy tonal qualities of this band or you will be climbing the walls. This track has more of the signature droning, repetitive riffing that these type's of noise merchants always have, no real variation and certainly no change in tempo.
Like all the tracks there is some great background noises to create even more tension, "Act IV" has a sound like marching feet at one point which put the image of Nazi German soldiers in my head. You know the deal that you get with these droning doom bands by now, there is no headbanging riffs, no lead solos, no real vocals and happiness to be found within the music but that is the way its meant to be. Darkness and despair rules within the drone sound scape and this album is a perfect example of that type of musical misery. Love it or hate it but don't expect anything different than 100's of other mostly project bands indulging in this musical cacophony. I personally found this album to be engaging and a thoughtful slab of drone - doom, played in the finest tradition of the genre. 9/10

www.myspace.com/seeitburn