From the opening drum roll of this album, through to the final note ringing out at the end, this is far more than an album, this is a journey.

A doom-laden journey, dripping in foreboding vocals, haunting guitar riffs, and thundering drums and bass. But there’s more here than just excellent doom metal. Twin guitars rise and fall across the landscape in classic heavy metal tones, accompanied by a dissonant vocal delivery reminiscent of Ozzy in his prime, all the while underpinned by a bass guitar and drums, which are granite-like in stature.

The band was formed in 2009 by vocalist/guitarist Toby Wright, initially as a solo studio project. The decision to add a full working line-up was made after interest grew on the back of glowing reviews for an early demo, “In the Days of the Taurean Empire” and for three years, they worked together to put this 42 minute epic tale together.

The opening track, “A Rush of Power”, really sets the tone for the album from the outset. A wonderful mix of doom and heavy metal in equal parts, twin guitars dance around vocals while a relentless rhythm section which seems to invoke the spirit of Sabbath once more, driving this and every other song to fiery conclusions. Along with track #6, “Embrace the Stone”, these two songs for me are almost perfect mixes of every aspect of what is musically so good about this album. There are stand out tracks for me on this album for different reasons; the third track, “Always in the Eye” is just good, head-banging heavy metal and the fourth track, “Walk With Me, My Queen” is positively dripping in doom from start to finish. But it’s the two tracks which combine every part of this album beautifully together which, for my money, deserve the most attention. That would be, “Rush of Power” and, “Embrace the Stone”.

Make no mistake though, I feel there’s something for every heavy metal fan on this album somewhere, you just need to give them 42 minutes of your life and you’ll be hooked, as I think I most assuredly am.