Blood of the Black Owl — Light The Fires!

“Light The Fires!” is the 4th full length album from Chet Scott’s (of Ruhr Hunter, Elemental Chrysalis and Glass throat records) metallic & folk/rock project Blood of the Black Owl. And it finds  him offering up another earthy ‘n’ woodland spirit bound release that mixers in elements of  1970’s  prog rock, country tinged folk rock & flute bound shamanistic tribal influences with more metallic fair.

I’ve followed this project from it’s first self-titled 2007 debut, and it's fair to say this new release finds Scott embossing  this projects metal roots with more & more non metal genre traits.  Also a lot of the tracks here are often more melodic & mellow than some of this projects past work…..yet there is still doom & metal heaviness here too.

The album offers up seven tracks in all, and all but two or three of these run at around the ten to thirteen minute mark. Starting off proceedings we have the very moody & primal bound “Caller Of Spirits”, which  mixers together Scott’s earthy & gruff  locked vocal chant, looped howling wolf or hunting horn billows, repetitive shaker elements, drone sustains & a few warbling flute/tribal drum elements.

Track two “Wild Eye” blends together a slight wavering & bleak country/folk/ rock guitar element, clear & gruff vocal elements, rising organ & bell chimes, along with layers of clean strummed folk lead work.

Track four “Sundrojan” offers up one of the more coarse doom metal moments, with a slow primal & chugging guitar riff mixed with  guttural spoken word vocals. Though the chorus goes semi melodic with warbling 1970’s  harmonic electronics texture & flute melody.

Track six “Soil Magicians” starts from a base of trickling water & muffled whispers before a mellow folk/prog mixture of clear guitar & bass kicking in, this is added to by shimmering string harp & flute elements. Around the four minute mark it breaks down for a moody mixture of tribal drumming, water & bird song field recordings with Scott’s gruff vocal over the top. Around the seven minute mark a more chiming doom guitar takes hold of the track with Scott impassioned shouting over the top, & a darting/ brooding 70’s rock bass line in the background, before the flute once more cracks a more mellow melodic edge to the heaviness.

All told “Light The Fires!” is another rewarding chapter in this projects career, with Scott managing to mix metal heaviness with more melodic, progressive & atmospheric fare.