Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine
Rampton
Southern Lord
2002
by Nathan Pearce
Greg Anderson, who runs and owns the mighty Southern Lord record label, doesn’t seem to enjoy life much. With personal projects like Goatsnake, Thorr’s Hammer, Sunn 0))), and now Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine, and label projects like Khanate, Place of Skulls, Warhorse, and anything else that punishes the listener through ghastly noises and feedback, immense bass tones, and guitars dirty enough to get kicked out of a crack-whore house for fear of contaminating everyone in sight; it’s hard to imagine a day that goes by without thoughts of death, decay, and destruction. For the listener, though, things couldn’t have worked out better. Only slightly similar to previous releases like Khanate and Sunn 0))), Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine is a culmination of frightening vocals, sickening guitars, and bass pumping forth with enough intensity to cause anal leakage.
Rampton is the collaboration of doom/drone legends Justin Greaves (Iron Monkey, Hard to Swallow), Lee Dorian (Cathedral, Napalm Death), Stephen O’Malley (Khanate, Sunn 0))), Burning Witch), and, of course, Greg Anderson. The three song album representing this collaboration clocks in at over 54 minutes. Any resemblance of rhythm, harmony, or melody is crushed by loads of feedback and the breakdown of song structure as we have come so accustomed to. To a doom/drone lover,
Rampton is a slice heaven (or maybe hell?).
For all the credit I’d like to give to the artists involved in Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine, I still have trouble envisioning
Rampton as anything more than an experiment in doom. Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine is simply taking the build-up and demise of any great doom song and creating a prolonged sense of that same anticipation/release that comes from that build-up/demise. The climax of each of the three songs involved in this project seems to be missing. However, I like to think this is the intent of the project. After all, the more we anticipate something, the more exciting it is to hear its climax. Consequently, when the climax never arrives, we sink back into the loathsome state of doom and gloom we entered into at the beginning of this trip into doom/drone hell (yes, its hell).
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