Anyway, we're not here to talk about nipples, we're here to talk about music. In this case, we're going to unload four massive doom metal tracks on your ass, thrown into our mailbox by Norwegian trio Barbarian Fist. Get ready for loads of fuzz, hammering drums and downtuned guitars in perfect stoner doom tradition. Grab the beers, uncover your nipples (whatever gender you are - note: the band suggest growing a beard but I like my idea better, wink) and plunge into a foul smelling cesspool of crushing psychedelic music.
Barbarian Fist claims to be influenced by the likes of Sleep, Electric Wizard, Black Sabbath and Pentagram and that's exactly what you can expect. They slap you in the face with monolithic riffs and often dress those in psychedelic freaking-out passages. For a doom fan like me this stuff is irrististible, especially because there's very little vocals in these songs. Vocals often make or break a song and leaving them out only does the first part. Yet, when present, the strong, clean vocals fit perfectly and do indeed enhance the music.
The sheer power of Barbarian Fist is relentless. If music had muscles, these songs would be Marc Henry, Goldberg or The Undertaker, although the band looks more like The Wyatt Family. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, don't worry. Those guys are wrestlers. I'm a wrestling fan and I've been trying to leave that out of my reviews for almost a year now. But here I can no longer hide it. Get Barbarian Fist in the squared circle now!!!
Well well, diverging again aren't we? Anyway, back to this brilliant album because it really is amazing. This album will probably end up quite high in my best-of-2015 list because of the sheer quality of the four songs. Each of them is a perfect blend of stoner rock, psychedelic rock and doom, three of my favorite things in the world, musically that is. Barbarian Fist surprised me a lot with this gem and all I can do to end this review, is to recommend this to every single doomer out there.
Serge