A Black/Death Doom Metal band from the United States. With a debut release released already. January 13th, 2023, saw the band release their second studio album, Divination. The album was released through Morbid and Miserable Records and promoted through Shred Storm PR.
Introduction:
Slog, Divination: This review will evaluate every aspect of the album, from its intricate musical composition to its production. Our analysis will provide valuable insights to help you determine if this album is worth adding to your collection.
The First Three Sins of Divination
Let’s start by discussing the first three sins of Slog and their Divination album.
The First Sin, The Strings/Keys: Features eerie undertones broken up by melancholic passages, while wild, doomy extreme metal riffs pierce through the mix. The Second Sin, The Vocals: Involves powerful, raw and unholy vocals. The Third Sin—The Percussions: Delves into the vast world of dark pounding drum strikes and beats, crushing drum beats/patterns.
The Fourth Sin: Overall Discussion: A sorrowful walk through a desolate crematory
Immediately, the listener presses that play button, and one is welcome to the six-minute opening piece, Illuminated Expansion, where the listener is welcome to an unsettling and strange atmosphere.
Followed suit with a despair-melodic riffage – which continues until the end of the release. These eight songs are an unilluminated journey, with a feeling that Divination is somewhat a continuation of their debut release, Graves. As if the listener has left the soak filled with rotting bodies of the deceased graveyard, now seeking knowledge of the supernatural … like some necromancer …
As the listener continues their dark, despair and brute misery of the second piece, Synthesis Sequencer, and the last six remaining pieces. A musical spectrum that’s not for the fate-hearted or weak-minded, a delightful pleasure of no favourites or skipping tracks. Needs and demands the listener to Divination as one piece — provides a brutal enjoyment for the listener’s ears from the moment of pressing that play button – a musical spectrum for those who love their brain and eardrums crushed with heavy and murky atmosphere and the decibels cranked past eleven.
Just like their debut release, all devilmanship is provided by an arcane savagery combined effort of Jared Moran (drums and vocals) and Nicholas Turner (guitars and bass), both of whom have a daunting list of credits in other musical projects and feature here countless times…
Divination provides the listener’s ears with this impressive fluid mix of (weaving together) elements of horrific, esoteric, despair, brute misery, and painfully slow-of-death doom and the slow and depressive/sorrowful feel of funeral doom. Thus creating this strange and powerful mystic soundscape/atmosphere. Simultaneously, within the music spectrum, there are other points within Divination, where the listener’s ears will encounter wild, doomy extreme metal riffs piercing through the mix. The drumming picks up speed, and the vocals come down full force upon the listener. The deeper one goes within the music, the more one will encounter the music and experience it like no other!
At the same time, Divination is a captivating album filled with remarkable devilmanship consisting of instrumental work of eerie undertones; this is broken up by melancholic passages meant to evoke introspection, along with its dark-linger, wild-extreme, and weaving in magical melodies that defy mortal comprehension, dark pounding drums strikes and beats. At the same time, the vocals are raw and unholy. The whole musical spectrum is filled with droning minimalism and ferocious aggression, while each song has a terrifying intensity with inescapably. Divination represents something elegantly gruesome that is just beyond our understanding.
A heavy musical spectrum with an atmosphere dipped in a dark, strange, and powerful mysticism soundscape – “Every note is a grotesque ritual, and every drum beat draws closer to impending doom” — not to miss!
The album ends with the last song, Eucharistic Purification. We want to give a shoutout to Shred Storm for letting us review Slog and their Divination album. Now, we will wrap it up by discussing the final three sins and concluding the review.
You’re Listening to “Labyrinth Amulet”
PlayThe Last Three Sins
Let’s discuss the last three sins, our thoughts on Slog and their Divination album.
The Fifth Sin, The Memorabilia: Is that for us, Slog is a heavy musical spectrum with an atmosphere dipped in a dark, strange, and powerful mysticism soundscape – “Every note is a grotesque ritual, and every drum beat draws closer to impending doom” — not to miss!
The Sixth Sin, The Artwork:
Showing a graveyard – thus speaking for the music, a music that’s no sweet walk in the park but a dark, sorrowful walk through a desolate crematory.
The Seventh Sin, Disrelish:
Nothing to disrelish within the musical spectrum of Slog, and their album Divination.
This concludes the Slog, Divination review.
Track-Listing:
- Illuminated Expansion
- Synthesis Sequencer
- Creeping Flora
- Theurgy Equinox
- Labyrinth Amulet
- Bequested Endowment
- Self Value That Utilizes Them
- Eucharistic Purification
Slog is:
- Jared Moran – drums and vocals
- Nicholas Turner – guitar and bass, mixing and mastered
