Project Armageddon – Departure

Project Armageddon has mastered the science of quantum physics, and here’s my reasoning behind said assessment. You put on their record, Departure, and you suddenly find yourself at the end of it. No, no. It’s not a glitch with my system . . . the disc doesn’t just magically skip over the content and pick up with the final droning notes. No . . . I’ve heard every note on this album several times, so I know the content is there. Time simply gets lost when this sucker is spinning in its tray. Project Armageddon has managed to make forty-five minutes of music feel like five. The good thing about this? I always want to hear more!

This Houston, Texas trio delivers a pummeling brand of doom metal, at times reminding me of Black Sabbath, especially when they take the more psychedelic roads with the music. These guys do a great job of balancing the all out destructive and cutting guitar tones with the more ambient and ethereal moments. Departure is the kind of album that works best with no external distractions. Lock yourself in a darkened room with a few candles or a lava lamp . . . maybe a black light . . . get comfy in your bean bag chair and take a few leisurely rips from your four foot bong. As the music swirls around you like the smoke from your bong, notice the intricate weave of tones and notes that Project Armageddon layer across your mind. Close your eyes and just follow the music. Let it teleport you to a land far, far away from your daily concerns.

The opening salvo from Departure is a tune called “Plague For Shattered Man” and the guitars are of that sludge-y, stoner variety . . . akin to Deliverance-era C.O.C. and just as devastating. With a riff this heavy, one might expect the rest of the band to drop in and carry the tune in high energy fashion, full tilt rock n’ boogie . . . but nay, Project Armageddon take the tune in a slower direction, almost plodding. Interestingly enough, though, the song doesn’t lack in energy due to the snail crawling through molasses tempo. This song is balls and the musicianship is freaking killer, specifically in the way of the guitars. Love the tones, love the Middle Eastern vibe to the solo, love the drums, love the bass. Seriously, there’s nothing to not like on this song. The vocals may be a bit difficult for some to digest as they tend to be sung in a higher register than would seem natural for the detuned sludgery of the music, but y’know . . . Ozzy got away with it for all that time with Sabbath, so get past it, folks.

Speaking of Sabbath, “Psyko-Sonic” reminds me of that classic Sabbath sound . . . a little bit of “Planet Caravan,” some parts of “Electric Funeral,” maybe some portions of “Black Sabbath.” Just cool and surreal sounding stuff, the kind of music that you can lose yourself in, and the BAM! The guys drop in with fully amplified, fully distorted guitars, and shake you back to your senses. The one aspect I keep keying into on this track is the clean guitars in the droned out mellow portions and how this subtlest of applications gives the mesmerizing portions that extra special texture. It’s the nuance, baby! Music with the subtle twists and turns are always the most interesting listens.

The band then go on a prog-tastic adventure in doom-y musicianship and dedicate the next twenty minutes and four songs to the story of a Nazi bred superhuman race called The Sonnekonige, which was part of the story line to a James Rollins novel called The Black Order (fun read if you get the chance . . . in fact, the whole series is pretty good escapist fun.) The piece opens with an acoustic guitar led, rhythmic track entitled “The Reckoning of Ages, Pt.1,” and acts as the lead into, you guessed it, “The Reckoning of Ages, Pt. 2.” The second chapter of the saga builds and builds and builds in classic sludge-y fashion, droning power chords over sporadic drum and cymbal crashes, before the grooving stoner riffery of “Steward of Shame” kicks in. This third chapter is where we first hear vocals about the tale of the superhuman Sonnekonige, but in truth, the music tells the tale just as well. The thundering stomp of the rhythm almost gives the impression of a legion of soldiers marching towards the world’s destruction. The tones of the guitars are massive and it feels like the weight of all existence is planted squarely on our shoulders.

The title tracks wraps up the album and opens with a classic riff coming straight from the vaults of Sabbath. Check this bad boy out . . . I’m loving their use of breaks to highlight the various instruments. A little bass lick here, a little guitar fill there, and the whole song comes together real well. Despite these short musical breaks, the song has a great flow to it and always feels like it’s moving forward. It also benefits from having a bit of a more up tempo feel than most of the other tracks. Point that spotlight over to the bassist as he drops in a pretty cool solo over that ever so cool guitar riff. Great way to put the close on a bitchin’ disc!

Project Armageddon will appeal to, obviously, the Black Sabbath fans out there, but also to the new generation of doom metal fans . . . people who dig Venomin James or Ogre should pay close attention to these guys. Departure is quite simply a brutally heavy album that touches on some of the fantastic elements of “What if . . . ?” The Sonnekonige epic is a perfect example of the imagination running wild with the concept of a specially bred superhuman, designed solely to do it’s masters bidding. Then, as always happens, the master loses control of his subject and all hell breaks loose. I dig it! Let the music take your mind places that it doesn’t normally go! Laced within all of the fantastic concepts are the warnings of what could be if we give a party absolute power. The collapse of social order, the loss of life, the destruction of our host organism, Mother Earth . . . when the fantasy stands on the brink of reality, the scenarios become horrifying. Thanks for the mind fuck, guys . . . Project Armageddon, ladies and gentlemen!  

--  Pope