Black Totem are a band from Finland that plays a mixture of black and doom metal with some touches of goth, punk and deathrock and this is a review of their 2021 album "II: Shapehifting" which will be released in February by Svart Records.
A very dark yet melodic sound starts off the album along with some clean vocals that are very heavily influenced by Glen Danzig. The songs also add in a great amount of deathrock elements while the slower sections of the songs also bring in the heaviness of doom metal and all of the musical instruments on the recording also have a very powerful sound to them.
A lot of the riffing is also very heavily influenced by blues rock while the solos and leads also b ring in a very retro 70's style. At times the music also captures the darkness of black metal along with one of the tracks also introducing female vocals onto the album as well as the music also capturing the raw energy of punk rock and all of the music sticks to either a slow or mid tempo style and as the album progresses a brief use of spoken word parts can also be heard..
Black Totem plays a musical style that takes black, doom metal ,deathrock, punk and blues and mixes them together to create a sound of their own. The production sounds very professional while the lyrics cover horror, occultism and left hand path themes.
In my opinion Black Totem are a very great sounding mixture of black, doom metal, deathrock, punk and blues and if you are a fan of those musical genres, you should check out this album. RECOMMENDED TRACKS INCLUDE "Begone Vampire" "Black Necro Gloves""Dead Meat" and "Warlock". 8 out of 10.
