Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
I recently came into possession of the ‘Wolves Of Desire‘ Demo/EP from Gideon Smith‘s latest musical endeavor Cemetery Crows, and feel inclined to tell you about it here.
It is a four-song foray into some heavily ethereal, psychedelic-centered Doom with many Fuzz Rock elements as well and I am just scratching the surface in that comparison. It is unlike anything Mr. Smith has delved into before… well, not to this degree I should say. Gideon has covered a lot of genre-warping musical ground in his day job, previously within Gideon Smith & The Dixie Damned.
Cemetery Crows is a bit more minimalist at its core, but that isn’t to say that it is not eclectic in any way. For it truly is such and features an interesting musical diversity taking place upon the four tracks contained here. This band features Gideon on bass and vocals, guitarist Salem, and guest drummer Saul.
Together this trio manages to sojourn into some really trippy, heady jam rock that comes across quite dark and utterly foreboding. The songs have a palpable drug-like quality to them, both hallucinatory and addictive at the same time. All of which is only augmented by Gideon’s barely-a-haunting-whisper-at-times-but-nonetheless-menacing vocals.
From the Black Sabbathian guitar tones of the title track “Wolves Of Desire” and its relentless barrage of drum pummels, to the song “Two Tygers Brightly” which is a more straight-forward Doom song. This material is unique and crushing.
“Come Below” comes across as if it had been Deep Purple that bartered themselves to Lucifer, proclaiming “We Sold Our Souls To Rock And Roll”. Gideon’s from beyond the grave vocals beckon you to come below, come below into the deepest, darkest corner of these Southern mystique sonics.
The last song “Laying Down The Hammer” does exactly that, not with any type of WFO attitude, but instead with the very essence of Traditional Doom, albeit at a more uptempo pace. The song just infects you from within while administering its decay.
Gideon Smith possesses a Midas Touch when it comes to creating bad-ass audible solid gold. It seems that Cemetery Crows will only further build upon his musical legacy with its interesting uniqueness. The project’s style of songs crafted is a gargantuan homage to the more Doom-driven forces at work in the musical realm around us.
They should instantly appeal to the more open-minded music fans out there as well as any Gideon Smith fans in general (like me). The ‘Wolves Of Desire’ demo is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise oft suffocating terrain of same old, same old stagnation and regurgitation.
