Patriarchs In Black – ‘Visioning’

Doom/Crossover

Metalville

Release Date – July 19th 2024

Review By Smudge

Patriarchs In Black are centred around the duo of drummer Johnny Kelly (Danzig/ Type 0-Negative) and guitarist Dan Lorenzo (Hades/Non-Fiction) plus a plethora of singers and bass players. This is their third effort and having not heard the first two I cannot comment.

Opener ‘Entry’ is a sad instrumental performed by Jonathan Eng and his viola that gets us to the huge Sabbath worship of ‘What Do They Know (For The Champions)’ which has Mark Sunshine on vocals and Iron Lou on bass. ‘Before I Go’ is proper doomy with COC’s Karl Agell adding the voice and Dave Neabore on bass. It’s low, slow and melancholic and that’s continued on ‘Heart Of Spite’ with Hob Traynor on vocals and Johnny Araya providing the bottom end. Lorenzo bangs the bass on ‘Low Price’ which has Mark Sunshine returning on a Trouble like dirge then things take a real diversion on ‘Welcome To Hell Again’ with Kelly Abe and OMC sharing the rap like vocals. Not usually my bag but this is top notch – proper punchy and bouncy then we get some blues on ‘Whiskey On My Mind’ with Frankie Diaz on vocals and Sal Juvara on bass. ‘Empty Cup’ brings back the doom with Exhorder’s Kyle Thomas distinctive vocals and Johnny Araya using four strings then ‘Curse My Name’ brings Jason McMaster and Eazy Ezekiel. The blues returns on ‘A Few Good Men’ and has Kelly Abe back singing and Eric J. Morgan on bass plus DJ Puzzle on turntables (?). Things go left turn again on the folky ‘Birth’ before the title track brings things to a close with a greasy sludgy groove rocker once again in the vein of Trouble.

Kelly and Lorenzo definitely have a chemistry especially for the heavy stuff but more than that they obviously know how to select the right musicians to help. All the songs sound like ‘a band’ performance no matter who is playing. I have a few of these records with different singers etc on every track and the vast majority are poor simply because of the lack of cohesion, this does not suffer that fate. Great songs, great performances and great production.

DJ Puzzle – Turntables

Track List –

1 – Entry

2 – What Do They Know (For The Champions)

3 – Before I Go

4 – Heart Of Spite

5 – Low Price

6 – Welcome To Hell Agai

7 – Whiskey On My Mind

8 – Empty Cup

9 – Curse My Name

10 – A Few Good Men

11 – Birth

12 – Visioning