Clouds Taste Satanic – “The Glitter of Infinite Hells”

If you couldn’t guess from the album cover, we’re going to take a trip down below on this album, exploring the lands mapped out by some Italian dude named Dante back in the day and now explored by some guitar weilding fiends from New York. Clouds Taste Satanic have crafted a dark and doom laden journey through the circles of hell on their newest effort The Glitter of Infinite Hells, an album that actually makes good on the promises that the Bosch inspired cover makes. The album consists of four tracks of well-crafted instrumental doom and stands as further proof that you don’t need some guy yelling about wizards (or demons in this case) all the time; sometimes you can let the riffs scream about those things themselves and it works. Each track is based around a particular layer of hell, though this journey through the Dark Lords domain is technically a bit abbreviated, only hitting up four of the nine. I’m assuming that Clouds Taste Satanic know about some Dark Souls style shortcut’s through Hell that allows it and that helps me sleep at night. They seem like pretty satanic dudes so they’re probably tight with ol’ Beelzebub.

Describing this as album “abbreviated trip” isn’t quite accurate though, as it’s four tracks clock in at over 80 minutes and are each a expansive journey in themselves. Each track is intricately woven, the guitars taking over any space that a vocalist would have occupied. They weave psychedelic guitar lines across the already lush atmosphere they’ve created, justifying the glitter of the albums title. While psychedlic guitar licks can sometimes take on that “evil hippie” tone, that isn’t the case here. The doomy hellscape atmosphere prevails above all else, with nary a flower child, evil or not, in sight. The unrelenting drum’s crash down and work you into submission through out the entire album, but especially so on “Treachery” where they help carry you lower and lower into a hellscape. The middle passage on “Treachery”, where Clouds Taste Satanic truly are doing what they do best and take the listener on a trip they might not be prepared for, starts out as something familiar but before long has twisted and transformed into something new and wholly dangerous.

The second half of the album consists of Violence and Wrath, both continuing the our journey down the river Styx, demonstrating all the wrath those waters are known for. Wrath is the perfect way to wrap the journey up, a slow doomy ride that into darkness that features bluesy riffs scattered throughout, ending in cacophonous fury. The cover and accompanying artwork all help to paint the atmospheric of psychedelic Hell that the music is trying to convey, staying true to the stoner doom metal aesthetic of goats on everything. I recommend a heavy dose of your favourite indica and the biggest speakers you can find to truly take the journey down the river Styx properly