Bedemon – “Child of Darkness” [Album Review]

Being a big doom metal fan, it’s really great to see this compilation being reissued. The original Bedemon lineup was much like a Pentagram 2.0. Amazing drummer Geof O’Keefe, Mike Matthews on guitars and bass, Randy Palmer also on guitars (R.I.P) and the great Bobby Liebling on vocals. Child of Darkness really highlights how raw and unrefined basement recordings from bands that went on to gain fame and stardom really were.

Every project that Bobby Liebling has been involved with always has an unyielding amount of good lyrics. For years Bobby had a seemingly endless amount of things to say in his songs and it’s pretty incredible to go back with a compilation like this and see that the quality of the subject matters has always been resourceful and well rounded. A song like “Into the Grave” is perfect example. True emotion shines through and really captures everything that doom is supposed to be. Having the opportunity to meet and talk with Bobby for a while, he told me that his brain is literally just out of ideas now. There’s just no more left to give, and it’s pretty incredible to think about the thousands of songs we DIDN’T get to hear because they didn’t make the cut.

Alright, I have yet to mention how good the riffs are on these demos and after all it is a doom release. By this time in the game Black Sabbath was already a well established name, however I can’t say that Bedemon is a copy cat of Sabbath. Bedemon, like Pentagram, was ahead of it’s time. I truly believe that Bedemon was the first actual doom metal band. Call it what you want, but it’s heavy, bluesy and with dark lyrics about drugs, evil, pain and suffering, these songs have all the criteria for being classified as doom metal. Again, these tracks were truly ahead of their time.

Track listing:

01. Child of Darkness
02. Enslaver of Humanity
03. Frozen Fear
04. One-way Road
05. Serpent Venom
06. Last Call
07. Drive Me to the Grave
08. Into the Grave
09. Skinned
10. Through the Gates of Hell
11. Touch the Sky
12. Child of Darkness II
13. Time Bomb
14. Nighttime Killers
15. Axe to Grind

Run time: 55:17
Release date: February, 24th 2015

Buy the compilation here at Relapse Records official website!

Bedemon – Child of Darkness CD – A/V Media – Relapse Records : Death Metal, Grindcore, Extreme Metal CDs, DVDs, Vinyl, T-Shirts, Hoodies and merchandise