Mohammad - Zo Rèl Do (2014) Lossless

Greek ‘chamber doom’ trio Mohammad seem to have hit onto something special. Using double bass, cello and oscillators, they produce a stark, rasping, grunting sound to rattle your skull and resonate deep down in the pit of your gut. Like some austere, contemplative dirge music played in a remote, post-apocalyptic monastic community, their music is as engrossing as it is punishing. The use of down-tuned bowed instruments gives Mohammad’s music a rough-hewn, tactile quality that perfectly captures that sense of sublime primitiveness, which is much sought after but all too often eludes more conventional doom and black metal bands. The oscillator tones add an extra bowel shaking dimension to the rich intermodulation of the bowed instruments.

The overall solemnity of the trio’s approach makes me think of Liturgical music made by Eastern Orthodox choirs; except that there’s nothing much orthodox about this record. I particularly like it when they pair the sound down to a hypnotic, rhythmic interplay of stark tones as in the opening track here, which brings to mind parts of Zdeněk Liška’s arresting score for ‘Valley of the Bees’, the Czech cinematic masterpiece of Medieval religious fanaticism. Excellent stuff from a unique band.