The House of Capricorn New Zealand

"Let The House of Capricorn take you by the hand and lead you on a dark journey straight to hell on "In the Devil's Days", which is their sophomore album. The main challenge of any band is to make a second album which lives up to the expectations generated by the debut album. The House of Capricorn definitely have no problems in that respect with "In the Devil's Days", which is a brilliant, and in many ways, innovative doom metal album.

The House of Capricorn draw on a number of different influences and seamlessly combine them into their own style of doom-ladden and expressive music which has both a metal aspect and a rock aspect, which are perfectly balanced. Thus, there is something on this album for both fans of classic doom metal, gothic metal, sludge metal, traditional metal, and dark hard rock, and there are even some elements on the album that fans of depressive black metal might enjoy.

The tracks on the album vary in terms of tempo and pace, ranging from extremely heavy and doom-ladden tracks like 'Les Innocents', 'Veils' and 'Horns' over midtempo tracks to slightly uptempo tracks, but the sense of darkness and heaviness remains consistent throughout the album, which is both rich in texture, melody and expressiveness. I would argue that "In the Devil's Days" contains the same qualities that made albums like "Shades of God", "Draconian Times", "Forest of Equilibrium", "The Ethereal Mirror", "Storm Warning", "Day of Reckoning", "Bloody Kisses", and "Beyond the Crimson Horizon" the doom metal classics they are, and the dark future of The House of Capricorn definitely looks promising.

It's doomy. It's gloomy. It's The House of Capricorn's "In the Devil's Days" and it rocks. Fans of heavy music should definitely check out this massive album.

(review originally posted at metalmusicarchives.com)"