Blood Farmers — Headless Eyes
Although Blood Farmers history is a bit disjointed, after listening to Headless Eyes you are able to hear their influence on quite a few Doom metal bands (Church of Misery and Electric Wizard come to mind, in Electric Wizards case you can see where they found a kindred spirit in adapting cult horror films to their music). Blood Farmers found their own influences in Black Sabbath (they even started out as a Black Sabbath cover band) and various 60’s/70’s psychedelic films.
Six songs enclosed, two are instrumentals (“The Creeper” and “Night of the Sorcerers”), all of them are blazing mixtures of Black Sabbath/St.Vitus doom combined with psychedelic flourishes ala early 70’s Cactus (and a bit of modern day Astra come to mind too). The four songs that feature vocals “Gut Shot”, “Headless Eyes”, “Thousand-Yard Stare” and “The Road Leads to Nowhere” all feature melodic, clear, rousing vocals; not easy to describe the sound but take one part Ozzy and combine with Armored Saints John Bush. This compliments the music exquisitely with the slow chug of the guitars, heavy groove bass lines and steady, pounding drums. The guitar solos are another matter, absolutely blistering, especially on “Night of the Sorcerers” melodic transitions to heavy, slow riffs and “The Road Leads to Nowhere” with its harmonious acoustic guitars just dripping with melancholy.
Headless Eyes is gloriously heavy without being overtly muddy. The Sabbath/Cactus/St. Vitus influences are used brilliantly here. After listening to Blood Farmers it becomes quite apparent that other Doom metal bands have also been inspired by their sound. Though they may have been a cult favorite, undiscovered for years, Headless Eyes will hopefully rectify this. 2014 started out a bit slow as far as new releases go, or at least to music you are actually looking forward to being released. If Headless Eyes isn’t on a few end of year best lists it would be a sad day indeed.