Weed Priest – "Weed Priest" ...

My first approach to Weed Priest had been at the end of the monster second day of the mighty Dublin Doom Days Festival back in late September 2012.  This Irish doom band had been located in the most unfortunate position for a festival bill, that is as the last band after ten full hours of doom bombing and after the headliners, notably Hour of 13. In spite of a few technical problems, this brave trio from Galway was able to grab the attention of those of us who had resisted until the very end. We were totally exhausted, albeit very happy about the day and the awesome festival.  But Weed Priest’s further dose of doped, nasty doom, conveyed by the “priests” Adrian Elatha, Ragas Walpurgis and Adam De Monlung, was cool enough to hook us there in front of the stage instead of letting us crawl towards the bar or, even, towards something flat like a bed. After bands like War Iron, Slomatics, Tome, Electric Taurus, Brigantia, The Naut, etc.,Weed Priest are a further evidence of the fact that the Irish heavy /doom music scene is well worth exploring in its past and present-day expressions. If you listen to Weed Priest’s self-titled debut full-length album you’ll understand why it was worth while resisting … And, if you don’t know the band as I did when I saw them that first time, you’ll understand that these guys are no doom sucklings at all!

The band was born in 2008 and released a demo back in 2011. This new, debut self-titled full album by Weed Priest arose after much work of inspiration, rielaboration and composition especially performed during “recording sessions on occult dates in locations of spiritual significance”, like for example deconsecrated churches or so.  Album Weed Priest is one full hour of slow, dirty, occult, fuzzy and doped heaviness celebrating all those nasty and sinful things that doomsters like: six slabs of mossy doom and dark, esoteric atmospheres in the name and in the vein of Black Sabbath, Electric Wizard, Saint Vitus, Sleep, Cathedral, with escapes into epic funeral doom and retro occult psychedelia.  There is a feeling of ancient and sinister predictions and rituals exhaling from the very first, suffocatingly slow ballad opening the album, Final Spell, where actions and emotions seem to develop unnaturally slow, like in a drowsy mind made numb by drugs or haunted by a spell. But these Irish “Priests” like to preach and practice their evil and occult wizardry through charming the lost souls with loads of groove and with great riffs as weapons. The tricky, double nature of this band, its hard rocking face, becomes apparent as soon as the second, dynamic track Erichtho starts. The whole album is built up around this alluring and winning merging of absolutely classic, sabbathian/wizardesque doom riffs with irresistible stoner rock and metal riffs. Listen, for example, also to the track Thy Kingdom Gone, where the guitar howls out a great, passionate riff sequence with an almost epic feeling. But here as elsewhere the raw, evil- more than tortured-sounding, barking vocals fight against the luring, melodic charge of the riffs and create a cool contrast.
Also the band can easily steer to almost unexpected atmospheres and moods by rapid tempo changes even when playing slowly. For example it is the case for the final part of the beautiful ballad Walpurgia, where the trio suddenly leave the sinister yet catchy, plodding stoner-doom rhythm and cast a darkening spell via the adoption of moody, epic funeral doom melodies reminiscent of Evoken or Esoteric.


In a track like Weed Priest the trio adopt a stripped down and sickly hypnotic, coarse, abrasive sludge-doom style reminding me of the suffocating ballads in War Iron or Slomatics. More extreme, ritualistic, plodding slowness and dilated to spacey atmospheres dominate the progression in the dark ballad Day Of Reckoning that closes this powerful album. The production of this album is remarkable, as it is able to pair crystal clear sounds with coarse fuzzy buzz, foggy occult atmospheres and sensations of ancient sickness. A bit like the effect of the sick, black and green, old-fashioned engravings in the cool, minimalistic album artwork.  The album was released on  February 25th 2013 through label HexenHaus (!) Promotions and is available for purchase as CD in a cool 4 panel card wallet as well as digital version via Bandcamp.   So, doomsters, get hold of Weed Priest’s mammoth debut album and add this Irish bunch of sinners to your list of the bands to keep under your radar for more occult doped heaviness and for cool gigs, possibly in an unholy, deconsecrated music hall …

Words: Marilena Moroni

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Weed Priest - Final Spell [official video]