Blood Ceremony, Murkrat, Jex Thoth, Devil's Blood, The River, Reino Ermintano...if the current wave of female-fronted retro-doom has been turning your crank, here's another addition to the fold that you might want to check out, a new Spanish duo called Deadmask who just released their debut EP on Psychedoomelic. The band is fronted by the bluesy, aggressive vocals of singer Nuria who used to play in a punk band called Electricats, and she's backed up by what is essentially a one-man band in the form of Dopi, who plays all of the instruments on Under Luciferian Wings. Some of you grindcore fans out there might recognize Dopi from his other gig as the drummer for Spanish scum-grinders Machetazo, and it's not too far of a stretch to connect the sludgier, doom-luvin' moments of Machetazo with the old school doom of Deadmask. This is pure doom metal though, a total throwback to classic 70's/80's downer metal with riffs pulled right of a time capsule. Both Nuria and Dopi make it pretty clear that they put Deadmask together out of a common love for classic doom and occult 70's rock like Coven and Black Widow, but what they ended up with is heavier and more Vitus-influenced than the proggy sounds of bands like Devil's Blood and Blood Ceremony. Deadmask actually remind me of the Peruvian doom metal band Reino Ermitano more than any other band that I can think of, but Nuria's singing puts this in a class of it's own. She's got this deep, bluesy, Gothic singing style, but she sings in English and the vocals are so heavily accented and affected that it's admittedly a bit of an acquired taste. Riff-wise, the original songs on Under Luciferian Wings are pretty crushing, and I hear a serious love of old Saint Vitus and The Obsessed in the two songs that open this disc up. The vocals are definitely weird, though. Heavily enunciated and really dramatic and very Gothy. I think that Nuria's voice fits with Deadmask's dark downer metal, but you'll have to check them out for yourself to see what you think.

It starts off with two original songs, "Your Other Side" and "Damned": the first is melodic and rocking, mixing together 80's doom and hard rock with a rocking chorus, which reminds me a little of The Devil's Blood (aside from Nuria's vocals), though these guys are way heavier. The second song is slower and heavier, a lumbering dose of classic sounding doom with massive downtuned riffage, morose lead guitar, and those weird, soulful vocals. That's it for original songs, however. The rest of the disc has the band running through a handful of cover tunes. There's a crushing version of Pentagram's "You're Lost, I'm Free", which fits well with Deadmask's old school doom sound, and it's pretty obvious how much of an influence the legendary doom band has on Deadmask. They take Coven's "Wicked Woman" and beef it up with heavier riffing and soaring guitar harmonies, and there's an all-acoustic version of "No Rest For The Wicked" from Swedish psychobilly freaks Coffinshakers. The odd cover here is Deadmask's version of "Four Grey Walls" from legendary death metallers Abscess, which gets turned into a short blast of Ramones-esque punk. Between the two originals and the clutch of covers on Under Luciferian Wings, I'm curious to see what they do with the full length album thats slated to come out later this year.

Comes in a full color digipack.