Stones of Babylon- Hanging Gardens (AS/RP297)

Started in 2017 the band descirbes itself on discogs as: “plays instrumental stoner mantra doom, inspired by myths and history. Stoner on the mother side and Doom on the father side”.  2 portuguese guys and one from Poland makes up this trio.  The bands first demo was created in 2018, called “In Portuguese We Say Padrada”. This full length CD features 5 long tracks. After a short sample for a horror film or something, a doomy theme begins!  The pace of the track slowly grows as the riff becomes a bit meaner and then the nice melodic line returns. Great riff.  Coffea Arabica continues with  a bit of an arabic theme guitar which is played solo for the first minute before the other instruments kick in at 2mins. It goes from heavy to Light and back and forth. I miss a guitar solo that would make it more diverse.  He does add an effect to the guitar later on so it does not all sound the same all the time. The bass gets really heavy at the end with some added distortion as it goes through some repetative sections. Zigguart starts slowly with a heavy mysterious vibe. You are waiting for it to explode. A sort of whispered vocal can be heard if you listen closely. At 5 mins it starts to get much heavier and intense and 7 ½ minutes a guitar solo (yeah!) is played briefly.  Black Pig Secret Megalith is a sort of more groovy almost HM track, still got the doom riff but some more action going on. Cool song. Babylon/The Deluge is the last track and this is like really classical Candlemass style doom with out the vocals. While this is nothing groundbreaking, it is sold, well played, well crafted Doom Rock from Portugal!!

https://www.facebook.com/Stones-Of-Babylon-411506462652704/

https://www.instagram.com/stonesofbabylon/

https://stonesofbabylon.bandcamp.com/

http://www.ragingplanet.pt