Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
A question: What do you get when you take members of Ministry, The Mourning, and Society 1 and put them together in a collaborative project?
The answer is easy and obvious… 3 HEADED SNAKE! But, if you have not heard 3 HEADED SNAKE, I bet you’ve already assumed it is an industrial metal type undertaking, right? You know, just based on the three bands referred to above, and all that. If so, then you are wrong, dead WRONG!
It is pretty much the exact opposite, in fact, as 3 HEADED SNAKE – guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, and drum programmer Sin Quirin (Ministry), his fellow Ministry bandmates, guitarist Cesar Soto and drummer Derek Abrahams – plus, vocalist Johnny Ray (The Mourning), and bassist DV Karloff (Society 1) – are anything BUT industrial metal in nature.
Clearly out to revisit the metal roots in their collective pasts, 3 HEADED SNAKE are a much more old-school metal and doom-oriented band, and there is no mistaking it on their newly released introduction. The three-song, self-titled EP is a mind-blowing journey into heaviness, that I find best described as “Metal Church-meets-Robert Lowe-era Candlemass (or Solitude Aeturnus, for that matter)”. Yeah, how do you like that?!!
Intriguing, is it not? That’s rhetorical, you know damn well that it is. This trio of tunes, “Symbiotic“, “Wisdom Screams“, and “Money God“, are incendiary songs constructed around powerful riffs and rapid-fire rhythms and drums. All while one of their stunning strengths, the dynamic vocals of Johnny Ray, reach epic heights within their soaring presentation on these molten salvos we call songs.
“Symbiotic” provides one of the best aural examples of this, as it erupts from the confines of its subtle beginnings. Programmed drums pulse within its underbelly as whispered words combine, drawing us in and then detonating into a ferocious tempest.
There is the haunting [Black] Sabbathian presence of the darkly-hued “Money God” as well, a much slower descent into more traditional doom elements. My suggestion is you begin with the first official video from 3 HEADED SNAKE, the Matt Zane (Society 1) directed “Wisdom Screams” (below), which assaults you with riffs as heavy as lead, yet worth their weight in gold.
Ray’s vocals rally overhead as serpentine rhythms weave and wind their way into your flesh, then a little Middle Eastern flare before the song goes all in and crushes everything. Its accompanying video is just as phenomenally stunning on a visual level. From there, check out the EP itself.
It contains overt destruction of hope that we can all embrace and revel in, a monstrous behemoth of epic doom delivered in a total playing time just short of 16 minutes. Stream the 3 HEADED SNAKE S/T EP here in our review or slither on over to Bandcamp [HERE] where it is available for streaming and purchase.
