Faerie Ring – Weary Traveler
King Volume Records / Wiseblood Records – 2023
Metal, Heavy, Classic, Stoner, Doom, Punk, Space, Psych
Rated: ****
We in the Heavy Underground are blessed with so many great labels that only release quality stuff. King Volume Records for instance is one of them. Not one to mess around and one that is careful with whatever they select to put out. So, when the new album by Evansville, Indiana foursome Faerie Ring arrived, we knew we were in for a good listening session. And Weary Traveler, as the album is called, is not so much a listening session as it is a damn fine adventure, start to finish. They went for this august and lofty production value, squeaking with a love for late seventies and early eighties metal. Indeed, classic on all fronts, they marry that love with a tasty infusion of doom and stoner elements. But they do not stop there. Blues, punk, space, psych and even something wicked and bouncy make an entrance whenever the urge arrived to do something different. And in doing so, the Faerie Ring for crafted something timeless and memorable. Those first two tracks alone, the beginning eighties synth lead towards that first guitar tone, the perfect way to start off opening title track Weary Traveler. A song that lurches and looms and starts the mystic vibe with a proper crystallized explosion, especially once those soaring vocals start, and that beginning riff returns after the big, towering rise. Following Silver Man In The Sky, goes slower, goes bigger and goes the way of the anvil! For that is what the song eventually will also be known for, the fact that the guys took an iron skillet with them into the studio and rammed it ‘in front of 20.000 dollar Telefunken microphone.’ But those two songs alone, as we just started saying, set up the entire vibe of the album. A vibe of something righteous, of a knight errand, on a quest for the queen, of something honorable. And then there’s something that feels like it’s all over the place, bouncing of the walls, and getting your blood pumping even more. That guitar wail in Never Rains At Midnite, the bass running against the grain, thumping in some extra notes here or there. Wild! Never weary at all, this is fresh and crushing! And album to fall in love with and one to take with you on whatever journey you go…
(Written by JK)
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