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Reviews

Northwinds — Great God Pan
(Black Widow BWR 021, 1998, CD / LP)

by Peter Thelen, Published 1998-07-01

Great God Pan Cover art

Ads we’ve been running the last couple issues describe this as a mixture of Horslips and Black Sabbath, and... well, that’s actually not too bad a comparison, especially on the Sabbath side, though most of the folk elements are very light, acoustic interludes primarily for vocals, guitar and flutes or pennywhistle. Where does Black Widow find bands like this? Open the booklet gatefold and you’ll find a photo of a cemetery. Doom prog indeed. This four-piece hails from France, although you’d hardly know as the lyrics are in English and sung without a heavy accent. To be fair, many of the heavy parts may remind more of Tull’s Aqualung period than the heavy and slower paced slag that Sabbath is so famous for, though they do cover a Sabbath tune here. Most of the compositions are long and involve many parts, offering plenty of room for ‘progressive’ development, and the band moves nimbly between simpler and sparser vocal passages into the most intense and complicated sections — between the heaviest riffs with screaming lead guitars back into their gentler acoustic side. A band of contrasts, they employ dual guitarists — both doubling on bass — drums (drummer handles lead vocals), and a keyboardist who doubles on the flutes, whistles, accordion, and whatever other Celtic instruments he can get his hands on. Overall it’s a pretty solid album — this writer hasn’t really heard anything else quite like it, though the individual elements are familiar. It’ll be interesting to see where Northwinds takes it from here.

Filed under: New releases, Issue 15, 1998 releases

Related artist(s): Northwinds

 

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