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DOGSTONE
Broken Peace

Self-released (2013)
Rating: 7/10

Dogstone are a Russian trio who hail from the Kemerovo region of Russia. I’d not been aware of these guys until I slapped my eyes and ears onto this debut eight-track album Broken Peace. The band has been busy since forming in 2009, with a demo emerging in 2010 and an EP, Time Of Waste, in 2011.

I didn’t really know what to expect from these guys, but I was quite surprised by their rollicking brand of doomy metal. If I had to pigeonhole these guys then I’d day that they fit somewhere between Corrosion of Conformity (at their weightiest), Down and sludgy doom metal.

It’s not an acquired taste, as their sound is upbeat, heavy and gritty, and the vocals of Kirill Skorobogatov are certainly aggressive and meaty working perfectly in tandem with the dirty guitars (also provided by Kirill) and the big drums of Anatoliy Sobolevsky.

Album opener ‘Crocodile Tears’ is a monolithic seven-minute slab of a tune that takes a while to get going, but once it does it really flexes its muscles as an unhealthy dose of rock ’n’ roll. Dogstone are not strictly doomy, the band preferring to commentate on local issues rather than rainy myths. The introductory news sample pretty much sums up the stark reality of this smouldering beast, which I think has the potential to make itself known worldwide amongst metal fans.

‘Lynch’ ups the pace and is a fiery track featuring a catchy riff and sneering vocal assault and clumping Stanislav Yakovenko bass. Church Of Misery and their brand of seediness springs to mind at times, just because of the whole filthy rock ’n’ roll nature of it all, the band clearly comfortable with shifting between foetid doom sludge and more boisterous moments.

‘Black Sheep’ slows the pace again, the drum jabs hard and the vocals really do spit and drool black saliva all over the speakers, while the earthy rattle of ‘The Wings Of Revolution’ is a far punkier affair with its raucous vocals and hypnotic riff.

The strangest inclusion on the opus however is the cover of Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Matters’ which despite its subtle intro becomes layered with soot and practically unrecognisable as it’s injected with an infected syringe. If only Metallica’s own version had been so seething!

Elsewhere, the band trudge on through fuzzed out murk of ‘Doomed To Death’, the toxic guffaw of ‘Blind Messiah’ and the grungy closing title track, with its sullen acoustics which melt into a billowing crescendo of black smoke and spilled oil.

While relatively obscure at the moment, I’m sure given the right promotion Dogstone will get the recognition they deserve, and I can’t think of a better noise to disrupt the tranquillity.

Neil Arnold

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