What is it about mid-Spring that causes so many Stoner/Doom bands to bloom? Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, Orchid, Kadavar have all dropped in the last month, and even more are on the horizon. Age of Taurus are a band that could probably get lost in the down-tempo shuffle, and this would be a shame.
Desperate Souls of Tortured Times is the first full length album from the London band, and it is a hell of a debut. It is an album with everything one would expect from a band in their genre. Low tuned guitars? Check. Lurching Master of Reality-like riffs? Check. Occasional jump to mid-tempo? Check. Psychedelic font? Check. Fucking awesome beards? Check.
Having said that, this album manages to transcend the cliches and stand out as it's own stoned beast. To use a cliche myself, they are not reinventing the wheel by any means. They do sound like Kadavar and the other aforementioned bands to a degree, but like those bands there is just SOMETHING about Age of Taurus that enables them to rise above the ever-expanding smokey pool of bands in their genre.
Perhaps it is the pure epic-ness of tracks like "Embrace The Stone" or the heaviness of "Sinking City" that sounds like it could shake a city to the ground. Regardless, they are worth your attention.
8/10
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