The songs on Zoroaster’s excellent new album Dog Magic (Southern Lord Records) are monolithic slabs of stoner doom. They are egregiously long and ridiculously heavy.
With six tracks totaling over sixty minutes, Dog Magic is not a brief album; however, the length of these tracks gives them room to breathe.
“Tualatin,” at over thirteen minutes long, opens with bass rumble and a chanted lyric before launching into several minutes of galloping post-Sabbath rock. From there, the track mutates into a slower, darker form of heaviness, gradually layering the guitars and keyboards and building to a droning wail.
Finally, well over twelve minutes in, the riff itself drops out, leaving behind a few mournful keyboards and horns. This gradual metamorphosis is a common technique on Dog Magic — none of these tracks rides out just a single riff from beginning to end.
One major highlight is the nearly fifteen-minute-long track “Algebra of Need.” Two vocal lines — a far-back yell and an up-front monotone chant — punctuate a Moog-and-guitar riff tied down with a deep, droning buzz. The effect is absolutely massive.
For ten minutes, the riffs are relentless, undergoing a gradual change but never letting up. Then the drums disappear, replaced by a droning backdrop which gradually swallows the riff whole. The song ends with a reverb-soaked guitar melody fighting to be heard over feedback. It’s a striking track that demonstrates everything that is great about Dog Magic as a whole.
– Patrick Hajduch
Zoroaster: www.myspace.com/thezoroaster
Southern Lord: www.southernlord.com