MMXX – Sacred Cargo
Release Date: 11th November 2022
Label: Candlelight Records
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Genre: Doom
FFO: Numerous Doom bands listed in the review.
Review By: Paul Cairney
Over the last few years, many bands have written their ‘Covid’ album, albums that are borne out of the enforced imprisonment that was lockdown. However, MMXX have taken this a handful of steps further. The, self-proclaimed, doom metal ‘supergroup’ feature Andrea Chiodetti on Guitar/Keys, Jesse Haff on drums and Egan O’Rourke on bass. You will note the absence of a listed vocalist, but do not fear, for Sacred Cargo is no instrumental album!
MMXX have put a very interesting twist on their own Covid album in that they have invited guest vocalists to not only sing on Sacred Cargo, but to bring their own lyrics. In doing this, each track invokes a different personality, featuring lyrics uniquely personal to the vocalist and their own experience of Lockdown. As Haff says, ‘It’s amazing to me that the grand vision of this album—one in which we had different vocalists from around the world contributing their own lockdown experience—was actually achieved’.
So completing the album appears to have been a challenge, and it also provides the listener with a challenge. In using not only multi-vocalists, but also multi-lyricists, we are presented with an album that just doesn’t flow. It sounds like a tribute album, other bands playing MMXX tracks. This is a legitimate criticism, but one I would imagine the band would take on the chin, almost expecting it.
The upside of Sacred Cargo is that many of the tracks are pretty decent. So good, in fact, that they help overcome the stuttering nature of the flow. Full of intelligent doomy riffs, inspired keys, check out ‘The Tower’ featuring Mick Moss (from Antimatter and Sleeping Pulse). Sacred Cargo is not the heaviest Doom you will hear this year, but it is one of the more intelligent.
In terms of the vocalists, there are a few standouts, Marco Benevento (The Foreshadowing) is excellent in ‘The Unavailing’ and Yann Ligner (Klone) is reminiscent of ‘A Perfect Circle’ style Maynard James Keenan. For those interested, the other vocalists include, Dan Swanö (Edge of Sanity, Nightingale), Aaron Stainthorpe (My Dying Bride), Mikko Kotamaki (Swallow the Sun), Carmelo Orlando (Novembre), Chris Cannella (Autumns End), and Egan O’Rourke (Daylight Dies).
Sacred Cargo is an ambitious album that almost, but not quite, carries it off. It is an album that you will dip in and out of. It doesn’t feel like a proper album and so, in this world of skipping tracks on your digital player of choice, many listeners will not listen to the album as a whole.
(3 / 5)
