Orange Goblin - Healing Through Fire (4.5/5)

01. The Ballad of Solomon Eagle 05:17 02. Vagrant Stomp 04:49 03. The Ale House Braves 03:49 04. Cities of Frost 05:34 05. Hot Knives and Open Sores 04:21 06. Hounds Ditch 05:30 07. Mortlake (Dead Water) 02:11 08. They Come Back (Harvest of Skulls) 04:43 09. Beginners Guide to Suicide 08:05

The racket Orange Goblin specialise in tends to be referred to as ‘stoner metal’. Indeed, they’re reputed to be the UK’s premier exponents of that particular sub-genre. They epitomised that style on their standout third album, 2000’s ‘The Big Black’, but since then have been moving in a more traditional heavy-metal direction. By the time their sixth album, 2007’s ‘Healing Through Fire’ rolled around, staple traditional stoner tracks like ‘Scorpionica’ were a thing of the past. Sure, there are hints of it at various points on ‘Healing Through Fire’, it’s definitely still an influence, but to be honest you’d be hard pressed to actually define this as a stoner metal record. I don’t know what you’d call it, really…it’s just really fucking metal.

‘Healing Through Fire’ is all brash, swaggering aggression, a rousing drunken salute to heavy music. That lively, stomping tone is set right from the outset with ”The Ballad of Solomon Eagle“, which is by no means a ballad in the traditional sense. Although from Orange Goblin, I doubt you were expecting “Total Eclipse of the Heart” anyway…which isn’t to say I wouldn’t give a kidney to hear them cover that. It’s hard to explain, really, but listening to this album makes me feel like my hair isn’t nearly long enough, and gives me a sudden impulse to grow a large mountain-man style beard, behind which I can stomp around glaring at people. Tracks like “Ale House Braves” and “Hounds Ditch” typify this kind of feeling; it’s the kind of song you expect to find playing in one of those dingy bars populated entirely by bikers and stereotypical ‘road people’ out of Kerouac novels who hop freight trains. Even the barman has a denim jacket, and tattoos on his face, and there’s probably an underground fight club in the basement. It’s pure attitude music.

There’s something deeply ingrained in the blues in Orange Goblin’s sound. Not the pitiful modern attempts at blues that tend to hang around the charts nowadays, but proper, down ‘n’ dirty old-school blues. The sort of music that gestated in a swamp in Louisiana for decades, before hauling itself from the ground to some sepulchral beat, stomping its way down Beale Street in Memphis through a haze of roll-ups and bourbon. The dark, moody blues that inspired Sabbath and played a pivotal role in the birth of metal itself. That’s the spirit that Orange Goblin manage to tap into.

This is most evident on epic closing track “Beginner’s Guide to Suicide”, which features plentiful slide-guitar and an actual honest-to-goodness harmonica solo. There aren’t a heck of a lot of metal albums you can say that about. This bluesy effort also flirts with a slower, more doomy style in the verses, proving that Orange Goblin have more than one string to their bow; although more striking evidence of this is available earlier on the album, on “Mortlake (Dead Water)”. It wouldn’t be out of place on a classical acoustic guitar album, if such a thing exists, and gives guitarist Joe Hoare a chance to show he’s capable of much more than downtuned power-chords and wailing solos. Not that there’s anything at all wrong with power-chords and wailing solos, obviously.

Vocalist Ben Ward sums much of the Orange Goblin style; he’s bloody enormous to start with, a giant bear of a man, and gives a performance of similar stature. His deep raw growl is a kind of blend between Motörhead’s Lemmy and Neil Fallon of Clutch, and suits the gritty style of the music down to the ground. He roars away convincingly to the faster, more balls-out tunes like “Cities of Frost” and “Hot Knives and Open Sores”, and adopts an almost comically deep clean voice for the bluesy verses of “Beginners Guide to Suicide”. It’s a performance marinated in copious volumes of attitude, and if I was to have to choose one word to describe it, it would probably be “badass”.

The production really brings out the heavy bass-orientated nature of Orange Goblin, which is perhaps the closest link you’ll find to their stoner roots - the fuzzy bass tone is at times deeply reminiscent of Kyuss. This album actually marks the first time I’ve ever felt compelled to turn the bass woofer on my sound system down. I feared for the structural integrity of the building. And you can stop thinking that I could have just turned the volume down! This is an album best enjoyed loud, the kind of loud that your doctor keeps warning you about. It’s a rampaging sonic beast of an album, that only takes prisoners if they’re buying the next round.

All in all, Orange Goblin never really disappoint, and I’d say they’re as good a standard bearer for British metal as they come. They should have a new album out any time around about now, and if ‘Healing Through Fire’ is anything to go by, it should be an absolute belter.

Healing Through Fire is available to buy at Play.com

Genre : Metal

Article by Phil Sim