Rorcal "Heliogabalus"

Rorcal's "Heliogabalus"... this isn't particularly new, but i was asked to review it some time ago. What's the concept behind "Heliogabalus"? It's based on the life of a young Roman emperor that ascended to the Imperial power at a very early age, fourteen years old, if i'm not incorrect. He ruled until he was murdered at eighteen years of age. Although short, his imperial reign was considered very controversial due to religious/sexual issues. 

Rorcal are, for those who never heard about them, a Sludge/Doom band from Switzerland, that in pair with AmenRa, i must confess, are one of my favorite European Sludge bands. With "Heliogabalus", Rorcal bring us a colossal one hour track filled with great epic moments and some interludes that perform their task of almost dividing the track in "acts". So this could be almost a musical, where Rorcal interpret the ascension and fall of that young emperor. 

It takes about 1 minute until the first riff completely smashes us, and from there on, a slow funeral march takes its place along with anguished screams of pain and despair. The use of samples/synthesizer reinforces even more that dense atmosphere that transports us back to the Roman Empire years. Heavy riffs are thrown into the air and fall in a very slow motion, i mean, very slow. This slow and grieve march continues until a musical interlude that takes place just before the next "act" of the story. The kind of music the interludes brings us, sound very tribal, making me think how would ancient Roman music sounded like? I bet it would sound just like this. "Heliogabalus" has it's own unique character, the kind of character that we might consider timeless.. people years from now will still speak of this and how epic it was/is. The more we sink into this track, the thicker the environment gets, and more and more and more, almost suffocates us. Many of you might run away from a track this long, but i can assure you that this is a real masterpiece, something like you never heard before, it's true that isn't no easy task, but effectively, Rorcal did their task very well. Take my advice and head dive into this one. You won't be sorry. The album is available to purchase through the bands website here, although, as a nice band these guys are, they also provided the album as a Free Download. But nothing beats a physical copy.

thrown to the lions