Artist: Jex Thoth
Country: USA
Label: I Hate Records
Formats: CD
Year: 2008
Last year around the same time as the release date of this album (April 28th, 2008) I got a mini CD that left me in a state of shock and awe by a brand new band called Totem. At that time hardly anyone heard about this illustrious band that nobody seemed to know much about. Not long after the release of the mini CD, which I have praised and hailed at in my review at the time already, they announced that they would change their name into Jex Thoth, after the singers (stage) name.
In the mean time the band released a split 7” with Pagan Altar and made themselves quite a culty name in the underground doom scene. Though they roam in the same musical spectrum as bands like Witchcraft, Burning Saviours and Circulus Jex Thoth are capable of getting the same atmosphere as cultists Coven, Pagan Altar or early Black Sabbath. The smell of sulphur is never far away and their mixture of old doom metal, folk and psychedelic 70’s music is the best soundtrack of your alchemist dreams. Yet, it had to be said that this album doesn’t breathe the same atmosphere as the first mini CD released under their first moniker. It lacks the purity, the virginity of the music on that twenty-minute-EP. It was like that Totem came out of nothing. Maybe its because you know what’s coming now, but it still misses that funny feeling that should come with this music. That feeling Witchcraft lost along the way as well. The dark and sinister feel that should go hand in hand with this kind of music. Above all it seems that Jex Thoth herself is not quite in top condition as her vocals are more flat and not as dynamic as it used to be. Which is a shame as that was one of the highlights of the music on “Totem”.
I can’t help being a bit disappointed in this release, yet I don’t think the band could’ve done any better than this. There are some truly interesting parts in the songs throughout the whole of the album, in a song like “Warrior Woman” for instance, but the overall impression is just mildly positive. Maybe the expectations were too high?
