Let’s be honest with ourselves – it’s easy to be a doom band. Let’s be honest with ourselves again – it’s easy to be a stoner band. Ergo, it is easy to be a stoner doom band. Inboxes of music people across the globe are positively turgid with demos and promotional material concerning a bunch of greasy, long-haired denim-wearers who have fuzzed out their guitars and decided to play blues-based, eight-minute dirges in two-four time. And all of them have a name that combines some vestiges of fantasy (or the occult,) science fiction, ancient civilization, and a color. If someone said to you “have you heard the new Chartreuse Parallactic Ziggurat album?” you already know that it’s a stoner doom record. Parenthetically, it’s also easy to get noticed as one of these also-ran bands. The mere appellation of “sounds like Black Sabbath” garners attention, since the Sab Four were such innovators and masters within the art form that their name carries great cache, yet to be, and perhaps never to be, diminished by time.
With great patience comes great reward, though. For those willing to sift through the mire, there are occasional diamonds uncovered within the burgeoning piles of run-of-the-mill muck. Enter into the fray Robots of the Ancient World (who, yes, are guilty of the naming convention mentioned above, but bear with us,) and their new release “3737.”
The most difficult part of being a stoner or doom band is not only being interesting in some way, but maintaining whatever it is that’s so interesting throughout the duration of the record. Truly, absent anything else, that’s the foremost strength of “3737,” and the thing that sets it apart from the nebulous cloud of contemporaries – this album is never boring.
A number of important executive decisions were made here, not the least of which is that the album keeps to a slim six tracks, so even though they average about seven minutes said and done (the two-and-change interlude of “Apollo” notwithstanding,) it never feels as though “3737” has worn out its welcome, even as it wends through the sloping, ten-minute curves of “Silver Cloud” right at the end.
Not only does Robots of the Ancient World elude the noose of dragging on too long by its simple duration, it makes the most of its time through the use of catchy but varied and creative riffs, and juxtaposes that against the unique-for-the-genre vocals of Caleb Weidenbach. Caleb bites his words off, not given to the airy groaning or wailing that is so often associated with the genre (even by Ozzy, truth be told,) and the twin guitars of Nico Schmutz (great name,) and Justin Laubscher never give into the temptation of extending a song out merely because the time is available to do no. Everything snaps, everything has a purpose, and the end effect is kind of like if Misfits-era Danzig sang for “Escape From the Prison Planet”-era Clutch.
It's through that lens that one must view the album opener “Hindu Kush,” as the Clutch-ian chug, highlighted with just a little accent of The Sword’s distortion, is both the album’s best piece, most anthemic, and sets a perfect table for the mid-throttle selections that come thereafter.
“3737” does have some of the traits more common to an album of this type – it’s easy to get lost in the head-nodding and lose focus on the music for periods at a time, but the band shows great skill in always changing the proceedings at just the right interval to bring attention back again. It’s worth repeating what was said above – this album is never boring.
To make a comparison to wines, if you prefer your stoner doom to be more full-bodied and rich, then by all means spin this new Robots of the Ancient World record. Your senses will be rewarded.
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