Place of Skulls - As a Dog Returns (2010)

Tennessee doomsters Place of Skulls return with another traditional Doom Metal combined with Rock release that will surely take you by surprise thanks to its groovy riffing and brilliant guitar solos. The band formed by Victor Griffin of Death Row/Pentagram fame gives us 9 very interesting tracks that will have you listening to them more than once in order to understand them completely.

As we listened to “As a Dog Returns”, we quickly identified a single issue that caused some confusion when listening to this album. The ordering of the songs is a bit odd and it tends to cut the flow of the album, creating a very uncomfortable but yet intriguing listening experience. The differences between “The Maker” and “Breath of Life” (tracks 1 and 2) are pretty drastic, since the first song opens things up in a groovy powerful fashion and the second one is more of a slower-paced ‘doomier’ song that kind of kills the flow of this release. This issue also happens further in the album, but if you don’t mind about the flow of a release then this should not be a problem for you.

In most songs the traditional down-tuned guitars are what make us love this release, but when things get weird in songs like “Though He Slay Me”, we start to wonder if they are enough to carry this release fully as a Doom Metal album. This song in particular you start listening to the ‘Jesus and shit’ message, and while we do not partake in things like this, we think that this fact alone might turn off many Doom Metal fans.

Like we mentioned before, regardless of the consistency of the songs and the message in the lyrics, the music is great. The chugging riffs are powerful and effective, the solos are well crafted and never sound pretentious, and the vocals are prefect for a release of the genre. Maybe the experimentation side of things throws the mojo of this album off by 90 degrees every time we hear something weird (like the ‘tribal like’ percussions on “Psalm”).

As a big emotional ride, songs like “Dayspring” give a very groovy/psychedelic vibe at the beginning (the solo around 0:50), but quickly change into more of a Rock song. Something definitely weird that is actually very interesting in our opinion. Other songs like “Timeless Hearts” have a Southern Rock-like feeling to them, adding more madness to this very weird and different release.

Overall, we know that Victor Griffin has been making great Doom music for years, but with “As a Dog Returns” his attempts of pushing the envelope are on a case by case basis a hit or miss. But there are definetly enjoyable songs in this release such as “The Maker”, “Timeless Hearts”, and “Breath of Life”. If you like traditional Doom Metal, this release will probably not be of your liking, but if you want something different and interesting, by all means get this release.

Release: September 2010

Country: USA