OUTREMER – Turn Into Grey

Metal flows freely out of Scandinavia like melting snow down a mountain stream. In 2001, Sweden gives to us the doom outfit of OUTREMER. Turn Into Grey is the fourth release from this band. From the tight sound of OUTREMER it is clear that some of the members have been playing metal together for decades. Let’s proceed to the tunes of Turn Into Grey.

At first listen I am instantly reminded of Crowbar. OUTREMER’s vocalist Ola Malmstrom’s dirty grumbled vocals sound eerily similar to that of Kirk Windstein’s. And the sound of the OUTREMER is rather slow and fat. So heavy and down tuned that it could make the foundation of a church crumble. We begin with the title track to the album Turn Into Grey. Quite a long song, it is worthy of a slow head bang and makes you want to grab a beer and go into shit kicking mode. Twilight Tyrants is a theme for the renegade biker. And judging this music, it seems like OUTREMER would be a type of band that motorcycle gangs would like. For being doomy it has some catchy guitar solos inside of each song. The bass is not to be ignored either. Making its presence known heavily during several spotlights in the middle of songs. OUTREMER has some of the fattest low end I’ve heard in a long time. The drums basically keep the same pace in every song, trudging along like a weary soldier. Great production on this album as well. The fourth song The Undertaker has rather haunting and brash lyrics, full of black humor, if you will; they steal away your attention from the music of the song. The final song, which is named after the band, OUTREMER, really sounds like Crowbar. Rotund and sludgy. All in all though, I find this album to be quite satisfying in the doom/stoner genre of metal.