Location: Chelyabinsk
Country: Russia
Genre: Doom/stoner metal
Full Length: Acid Doom Rites
Label: Addicted
Format: Digital, streaming
Release date: September 22, 2019
Megalith Levitation is the next step in doom metal’s evolution as they’re taking it to extremes of minimalist, hypnotic ritual drone beyond most English and American doom bands. The Russian band has maintained a steady lineup since 2016 and strive to compose the most ponderous, mesmeric doom metal imaginable. It took them three years to perfect their debut recording “Acid Doom Rites”, and if reactions to it are an indication they’ve succeeded at creating something frightening in its unremitting power and inventiveness.
It sounds like a stereotypical cliché, but I’ll say it anyway. And elaborate on the point. The only way “Acid Doom Rites” can be listened to is loud. As in ruptured, bleeding tympanic membranes loud. Neighbors who think Black Sabbath is too much to handle will be locking themselves in their homes and hiding under their beds fearing global devastation if they should hear this album.
“Acid Doom Rites” is a monument to all things doom, drone, stoner, and sludge, torn from the fabric of time and space, made tangible by musicians who spent extended periods looking into the dark and finding it has looked into them. Megalith Levitation is described as musical occultists who compose psychedelic sermons that transcend illusion and reality, guiding you through an unknown eternity. From the first moments of the first song you’re on this journey with a slim chance, if any, for a peaceful return.
Dare I say they make Sunn O))), The Obsessed, Yob, Boris and Cathedral sound spongy and threadlike? Because “Acid Doom Rites” is so unrestricted and punishing that a single power chord threatens to compress your brain and body into unrecognizable sarcocarp. As groundbreaking as established doom metal bands are, they don’t quite represent the soundtrack to eternity as well as this band. I haven’t heard an album this dark and menacing since Winter’s 1990 opus “Into Darkness.”
The gritty, repetitive psychedelia here may suggest you should smoke tremendous amounts of weed or ingest a healthy dose of acid while listening to it, but excessive volume will provide a sufficient high. This owes to a motif truly occultic and ritualized in nature. The songs range from sixteen to twenty-five minutes in length, making enough room to push everything to the extreme. From incessantly repetitive and ceaseless guitar and bass progressions to monotone crooning to stridulous black metal-style vocals to atmospheric guitar solos to intermittent sound effects, “Acid Doom Rites” reeks of a theatrical metal opera, presenting new opportunities for doom and sludge to evolve while perpetuating its roots. -Dave Wolff
Lineup:
SAA: Sermons & fuzzmagic
KKV: Thunderbass
PAN: Skullhammers
Track list:
1. Spirit Elixir Drunkard
2. Eternal Trip / The 4-th Plateau
3. Acid Doom Rites
4. Smouldering Embers / Pyromagic
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