Seriousness in heavy metal is frequently a false assumption. Talk to a band that’s put out a grand, deep and philosophical record, and they’ll do nothing but joke with you. Whether they’re dodging the question or are simply more gregarious in person than on plastic, the mean faces imagined or portrayed in press photos are often just show.
But sometimes, they really mean it. If I had to guess, in the case of Process Of Guilt, they mean it.
Euro-doom tends to be more grave than most, but in this rare Portuguese hybrid, there isn’t even a shred of nonsense about Erosion. The band works in four modes: Plodding riff, plodding riff with spacey but conservative solo, plodding riff with grunting vocals, and breakdown. That’s about it. There’s the odd, introspective moody section (“Abandon”), but despite hailing from the land of pork and clams, Process Of Guilt are all meat and potatoes.
And they’re damn good at it.
Far from a radical reinvention of the style but more a codification of the band’s ideal within it, Erosion is a logical successor to 2006’s Renounce, their debut, which displayed the same no-bullshit approach to their doom and gloom. Guitar tone’s the same, vocals are the same, tempos are the same. Sometimes, it’s good to be able to count on a band to deliver what you expect. Process Of Guilt certainly do.
In A Word: Satisfying
