I get pretty enthusiastic about black/doom as it is a style which sounds transcendental when done right but whose chemistry is tough to master. Add to this the fact that there really isn’t a defined recipe for black doom as black/death or even black/thrash rather when combined it could sound as melodic or as harrowing as intended. Enter Blood of Sokar whose debut (?) is nothing short that a getting lost in a cursed forest with creatures of the night occasionally stealing parts of flesh from the listener.

Sometimes I use the images evoked from listening as a litmus test to its potency. Blood of Sokar’s combination of slow moving doom with some otherworldly vocals makes the whole experience inches short of haunted and the three toiling tracks which inhabit their debut a spectacle for anyone willing to venture this close. While I find Blood of Sokar’s music entrancing, I will admit that for anyone seeking music that has any sort of hook past droning organ, you might want to look elsewhere but if you were looking for that in black/doom, you might have already been lost.

Finding Blood of Sokar was a treat as I always want to see how the field of black/doom is expanding. Bands like Yith and Cough are big contributors who sound nothing like each other outside from a general thesis of gloom. Blook of Sokar continues this tradition with something that sounds like stoner doom died in a house long ago and the apparitions of its former self still toil away at windows seen from very far distances.