ORCHID "Mouths of Madness" (2013)

band: Orchid album: Mouths of Madness year: 2013 
genres: proto doom metal origin: USA

ORCHID, THE BAND NOT THE BLACK SABBATH SONG

Have you ever heard a song and suddenly said “I’ve heard this before”? This happened to me in the very first listen I gave to new Orchid’s effort “Mouths of Madness”. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that I am a 70’s wise elder who lived the rock’n’roll and proto metal era and who now feels like going back home by listening to such outstanding retro music. I came across with this deja-vu because I’ve got several Black Sabbath albums, not the whole collection, yet the must-have ones for a mean doomster, and it turned out that Orchid mean it when they point out to be a Black Sabbath worshiper band.

Orchid is a band that may not require an introduction. They’ve earned a lot of attention since their 2011 debut “Capricorn”. The popularity of the band increased when they signed a deal with important Nuclear Blast Records, achieving a new level in amount of ears that can catch their music. This contract put Orchid on a par with Sweden’s mighty Witchcraft inside this movement of retro doom metal, in which now also joins just rising Kadavar. Thus, this first full-length album released under the sign of Nuclear Blast should represent the most important happening in the not so long Orchid’s career.

“Mouths of Madness” offers a similar formula to their debut “Capricorn”. The retro feeling is the main element and manages everything inside the album: low toned guitars, nice blues grooving riffs, primitive bass sound, and that characteristic drums from the 70’s. Vocals are side psych and retro, somehow preserving some originality by not sounding as an Ozzy clone. Seems like Orchid knows where to place each element, the correct variation of tempos is a feature that only people with a killer composition gift can develop and it blesses the album keeping the listener from hitting the “forward” button. The album as a whole may take in mind the legendary Black Sabbath’s “Vol. 4”. You know, some melodic guitars used to appear in that album, featuring acoustic guitars, Iommi showed a wider song-writing style and this is exactly what happens with this new Orchid album.

Haven’t I listened to Black Sabbath before, I would put Orchid in an altar and worship them from now on. Nevertheless, since the beginning of the album several Sabbathic moments appear and disappear while Orchid moves you through melodies and riffs. My deja-vu begins with second track “Marching Dogs of War” and those hypnotic odd bass lines that quickly remind me of “Children of the Grave” strange percussions. However, there is a thin line between being influenced by a song and coerce the listener to go over his storage of Iommi riffs locked up inside his mind. This begins to occur during the album running. Perhaps the worst example, and the one that forced me to write this review, is the third track “Silent One”, at least for me, it appears like the band has ripped off important elements from “Internal Void”: that classic riff is carried out almost exactly the same in the beginning of the song, but things go worse when the riff turns heavier just like when Ozzy starts to sing in the same song, the similarities are undeniable. The song continues with nice clearly original elements, but when the song reaches its climax with the guitar solo Orchid falls once again into the void. The main riff of “Into the Void” seems to appear in the last track “See You on the Other Side” too.

Going ahead with the tracks, the entrance to “Nomad” just calls for people to remember the unforgettable beginning of “Wheels of Confusion”, but don’t be scared, this time affinities are less acute. Nonetheless, in “Leaving It All Behind”, Orchid has, in my opinion, taken shamelessly the introduction to “After Forever”. That representative riff that strung along with Ozzy’s vocals is also summoned in the track “Loving Hand of God”. Finally, “Wizard Of War”, appears to be Orchid’s version of “Paranoid”, however, that classic riffage has been used so many times in the past by an scarily huge number of stoner rock bands that it seems to be of public domain.

What else can I say? That I actually don’t remember by heart the whole discography of Black Sabbath? Imagine what would happen otherwise. There is no doubt that Orchid has set up a killer album, one would love to play this one in the car with the highest volume admissible by the transit laws. The album is enjoyable and it has its original and creative moments which are, of course, outstanding as well. Orchid are gifted people with a lot of potential which is, according to a considerable auditory, already unleashed. Plus, the lyrics work is quite cool and worth digging in. But, in my very own opinion, Orchid could sound better if the cut off they umbilical cord from Iommi and his fellows.   

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