This band called Dool is one of the few bands that appeared lately on the metal scene as something promising. I do not know what the future holds for them, but their debut album Here Now, There Then seems to be a decent start. Definitely not a “shockingly” great contribution (this is a compliment!), but on the other hand pretty catchy and full of hope.
The feeling that the album gave me was somewhere between energetic and subversive in a good way. The songs are for those who would enjoy some energetic rhythms. I would even say that some parts of the songs pretty much revive some sort of a postmodern psychedelic ambience (the third song Words on Paper for instance). I especially like the strong vocals of Elle Bandita (Ryanne van Dorst), which suit the darkly psychedelic environment pretty well. Also, the guitar passages are pretty vibrant; you can sometimes catch some nice guitar solo transitions in between.
The vocal patterns seem to be unique for this album, especially in the first and the second songs of the album. I must also say that the guitars, drums and bass all together are pretty strong and their harmony within the compositions of the songs is great. What I find worthy to mention is definitely the album opening track “Vantablack”. The sharp melody and darkly feeling combined are almost perfect and the spirit of the song is definitely something I did not hear often; it literally gave me goosebumps. Even though the album overall was good, I did not enjoy the second half of the CD as much as I enjoyed the first half. It seemed to me that a couple of filler songs were included in order to come up with an album rather than an EP. Nonetheless, I would definitely recommend the complete first half of the album for an eargasm, plus the songs “She Goat” and “The Death of Love” for dark/gothic metal lovers to check.
I am not going to end this review negatively though. I think that, despite being a debut album, this one seems promising. This is certainly not the dull and boring dark metal which we are used to seeing most of the time. This has something unique to it. The shady ambience of vocal and guitar patterns make the album pretty memorable if you enjoy such psychedelic, alternative, doom and gothic mixture that produce a vigorous soundfest rather than a gloomy one.
Songs / Tracks Listing
1. Vantablack
2. Golden Serpents
3. Words On Paper
4. In Her Darkest Hour
5. Oweynagat
6. The Alpha
7. The Death Of Love
8. She Goat
Line-up / Musicians
Ryanne van Dorst (Elle Bandita) – Vocals
Micha Haring – Drums
Job van de Zande – Bass
Reinier Vermeulen – Guitar
Nick Polak – Guitar