With an enviable underground cult following through their early years of existence, Germany's Worship catered to just its core audience. Take that with one full length released on hand-numbered tapes back in 1999 followed by a few splits with equally underground hand-numbered kvltness, 'twas really understandable to have this 2007 album as my first exposure to this band. From what I gather, their vocalist Max had jumped off a bridge and committed suicide. The band regrouped in 2004 in his honour and there's even a picture of the bridge in the album sleeve here. Dooom is the name of this album and this was all supposedly written back in 2000 with final touch ups before making it available to a relatively wide audience unlike before.

This is soo dooomy, they needed to put an extra 'o' in the album name just to set the expectations right. Sorry, I just had to take a dig at that but seriously, this is some of the really finest funeral doom we've got here. Nothing new and nothing too out of the box if you're already familiar with genre giants like Thergothon, Skepticism, Shape of Despair, Ahab, Esoteric and of course, Funeral. Just your regular evil brutal extra-slow desolate melancholic gloomy atmospheric did-i-say-slow melodic droning and chuggy drawn out epic doom metal. I suspect it has been a work-in-progress for years so there's a lot to listen to. And this does have a running time of almost 73 minutes so beware if you can't handle such bleakness. The band adds clean bottom-ended mournful vocals like in the verses and the mid-section of Gravey and Horizon and then go on to the brutal drone and sludge filled sections with guttural growls. Just to give you a rough idea of what you're in for.

The three prong attack towards the middle of the album with Gravey and Horizon, Zorn a Rust-Red Scythe and Devided are definite highlights of the album and between these, the band flawlessly shows off all the doom metal tricks in their bag. There's also a haunting take on Solitude Aeturnus' Mirror of Sorrow towards the end of the album; as if their own mindfuckery wasn't enough. Dooom is a must-have for fans of the genre and a good place to start if you're keen to be one.

Year of Release: 2007
Label: Endzeit Elegies