Born with their heads full of ghosts as de facto scions to none but the black flame, wild and alive with the rational glare of wisdom in their red-shot eyes and the unearthly grace of Satan as their strength Warsaw, Poland-based stoner/doom metal quartet Dopelord aggress upon the unsuspecting public with five hymnals directly channeled to the followers of Satan. In solidarity with freakery, witchery and hopped-up skulls alike ‘Songs for Satan‘ surely contains the long-standing traditions of heaviest blues rock, bounding sludge-tones and the stoned-ass doom metal resultant through their own iterations yet their craft is now tuned exactingly to der perfekt traum of fuzz assaulted rhythmic groan and outcast-anthemic songcraft. Rousing and extreme in its collective earth-rending hi-fi boom this fifth and finest LP from the crew finds its lasting vibrancy in its cleverness for deceptively simple yet effective songwriting.

University, weed, the devil and “them”… — Dopelord formed in the original quartet’s place of study (Lublin) back in 2010, and you could tell what’d inspired them in terms of stoner rock/metal, Black Sabbath, 70’s horror films and smoking weed together. They’ve been going steady at it since then without interruption, trading out a few drummers as their gig got bigger and more serious about touring. The Faustian swamp rock rites of their first album (‘Magick Rites‘, 2012) had the blues-rocking stoner doom metal swing one’d want from an airbrushed and bong-hitting crew of the time but they’d soon pivoted darker, more Electric Wizarding occult groomed and grinding at a different fuzzed lament in their riffs for their second LP (‘Black Arts, Riff Worship & Weed Cult‘, 2014). Moving to Warsaw surely opened new opportunities from there.

Hey, they were still writing songs with titles like “Pass the Bong” back then but their work was always rooted in sound musical intelligence, at least in terms of write a damned song around a big riff, be it a bluesy Sabbath groove or a sleepier psychedelic doom drifter as we’d find on their third LP, ‘Children of the Haze‘, back in 2017. That’d been their big’un, their piledriver hit and the one that’d first feature their partnership with thee wizard Haldor Grunberg of Satanic Audio who has consistently elevated the band to new heights with each record since (‘Songs for Satan‘ included.) Looking back at those first three records once more it was interesting to find that the vocals had been more varied/developed between albums but from song-to-song as the bluesy current that’d flowed through each album eventually became scathing sludge/doom on the third record (see: “Scum Priest”). They had the sound, had places to go with it.

By the power instilled in me by Him, our unlord… — Ever on the cutting edge of the latest horrors available to mankind, Dopelord would release their brilliant fourth full-length album (‘Sign of the Devil‘, 2020) shortly before the pandemia began, literally the day before lockdown began here in the states. This whole global mass death and gov’t/societal upheaval thing along with social distancing prevented a pretty incredible breakthrough release for the band from hitting as hard as it might’ve while also delaying any touring for it for some time. I’d reviewed the album a little under a month later and still have nightmares where pieces like “The Witching Hour Bell” returns to finish of their kill. Their ‘Reality Dagger‘ mLP followed in 2021 and at that point I think it’d become clear whatever their crew did next would focus on songwriting, and I don’t mean the sub-genre specific nodules exclusively but catchier, sometimes harmonized songs that stuck as hard as the opener from the previous album had, specifically pieces like “Your Blood”. Per my review of that mLP “it was probably “Your Blood” that felt like the biggest point of growth or, differentiation, as the most swinging psychedelic doom effort of the bunch. Maybe I’ve been stuck in dissonant extreme metal Hell and ritualistic doom flatlining for too long but I found myself seriously appreciating that these guys make a damned song out of each piece, a statement worth remembering for more than vibe or trendy modular presence.” An elaborate suggestion that they’d been aware of their best work to date, almost pulling back to some of the tendencies from their earliest approach.

That only takes us a step, an inch towards describing the hectare of a leap Dopelord‘ve taken into ‘Songs for Satan‘ not only in terms of upping their songcraft to ear-licking infectiousness but delivering pieces that should more clearly define what this band has to offer beyond the usual heady burn of stoner doom n’ gloom. Opener “Night of the Witch” is the door burst open, the third eye sprouted and the laughing deer-head mounted on the wall as it gives us this miserable funeral marching riff to start, building its momentum for a quick verse into the rousing main chorus, dipping a club foot into major stride of the song a few verses at a time from that point. Bassist/vocalist Piotr Zin has done well to key into his cleaner, somewhat nasal vocals for a traditional doom metal tinged deadpan which has its own intensity on this opener (not far from “The Witching Hour Bell”) and this brings incredible presence to this song in layers of subtly tuned delay (or, echo) adding to the dirging anthemic climb of the song. For most keen enough listeners the gigantic fuzz-canon of a guitar tone, the post-millennium Sabbath groove and the chorus of that first piece will be enough to sell the record outright and that’d only been the first of five ~7 minute roasters that keep this thing killing front to back. The quality of experience promised up front is world class and not that far from early Ghost-level catchy.

Close your eyes, feel your power rise. — If you’re really all that into the great Szatan the riffs will surely flow and of course Dopelord are completely set afire as their bigger, sludgier side begins to develop grinding enormities beyond the opener first with the tormented bludgeon-pace of “The Chosen One”, a piece which has its own zombified gate and searching vocal to start but soon develops its lucid hook-and-lumbering roar of a chorus which swerves into a circa ’95 Cantrell-esque touch upon the phrase Zin leads with. This is the sort of moment effective enough to warrant hitting repeat on a seven minute song, a rewarding dent in the song that’d never left me impatient or ready to move along with each spin of ‘Songs for Satan‘. The actual peak of the song hits around four minutes in before they’ve bridged-out and torched it for a stomping final third of the song. Again we’re still just a couple songs into this thing and the bar is set out of bounds, noose high in terms of tuneful stoner doom and its perfect foil for heavy rock structured buzz and kick pieces. The tradition of stoner doom metal is thick, of course, but again these folks’ve got songs and more than a notion of what sticks.

Co-vocalist/guitarist Paweł Mioduchowski gets in on it earlier in “One Billion Skulls” a cleaner less violently growled shout to start as the sludgier riff driven piece leaks some psychedelic rock guitar droning in between verses. A simple piece and one which is once again elevated beyond or nearby their work on ‘Sign of the Devil’ per the more easily read clean vocal melodies with distinct choruses in each piece. Really I could go on finding nugget-like moments of gold in every piece. Hell, the melody that rises and falls throughout “Evil Spell” keeps the momentum high and is matched by guitar parts that keep the phrases slinging on, and the brutal sludged-out crush of “Worms” is their own thing as they keep the heavier side of the band mean, hissing with the bluesy edge of early 90’s sludge metal spiritus wide-eyed and seeing red. The main chunk of the full listen, intro and outro brief but included, spins well on repeat runs enough of a gamut to entertain and does well to feel like a great next-level bump beyond Dopelord‘s already impressive trip.

The gist of it, the rub of their greater hex is that Dopelord‘ve hit us with a ~39 minute record that doesn’t miss, keeps the roaring momentum of their mid-paced doom metal quake pushing through for a perfectly considered listening experience capable of captivating even the frailest attention span before leaving a serious notch in the bedraggled Christocentric brains of the participant. ‘Songs for Satan‘ doesn’t introduce a new sub-genre or invent a new type of crucifixion within its glowing copse but rather lands as undeniably accessible heaviness to such a pro degree that it feels unreal each time it hits. A very high recommendation.

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