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PENANCE
more PENANCE.
way more Helter Skelter.

May 18, 1992 - 2022: 30 years of: The Road Less Travelled.

The new face of American doom.

After the heavymetal incarnation of DREAM DEATH, the Pittsburgh natives would morph and doom-down into PENANCE. Following the US doomrock standards of TROUBLE and PENTAGRAM, this new unit went way, way, way deeper.

The morbid piano-intro of the instrumental "Eulogy" sets the mood and then the rhythms enter into a path to nowhereness. The end is here. "The Unseen" snakes itself slowly around grasping every cubic-inch of air with it's crushing-riffing, while the rock-feel of "Misgivings" oozes with mid-paced AC/DC-ishness.

The suffocating 11min+ monster "Penance" redefines this new era of doom and gloom and the raging of "Not What It Seems" shakes the ground with a from beyond power.

Released on Lee Dorrian's Rise Above Records, PENANCE drummer Mike Smail even performed on CATHEDRAL's Forest Of Equilibrium 1991's lump of heaviness. 1992 would be a calendar-year that spreaheaded the alt-rock Seattle take-over but also provided a spring-board for another NoCal stoner-doom milestone: SLEEP's Holy Mountain.

The 2005 The Road Revisited CD sheds an updated light on forgotten initial recording-sessions, but falls short next to the actual released recordings. The PENANCE sound and signature-sound would migrate into full BLACK SABBATH Master Of Reality + Vol. 4 stonermetal tones with 1994's Parallel Corners CD.

*
The Road Less Travelled = full CD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er1UQ9xR730&list=PLmdgwiJU7aqKmtVjIOt56RxXdhbRY6VEe
Live in 1992
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVBiMk8rmlA
The Unseen 2005
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Q2uLCh5r0

more PENANCE:

CATHEDRAL