So the Reverend's mission is terminated, and concluding his journey through doom's strange horizons is this gargantuan double-disc coda featuring seven songs in over two hours. For a band who were always so candid about the essentially derivative and prescriptive nature of their craft, their singular personality is manifest, from the sarcastic, unorthodox title to the creep, potty atmospheric outro. Even weirder, the album begins with a series of unashamed stoner rock grooves the like of which haven't been heard since Man's Ruin folded; soon enough, of course, they sink deep into the melancholic mire, yet there's always a twinkle in these lads' eyes. Perhaps frontman Albert's self-professed depression is actually what makes this music sound so consistently life-affirming; there's no wallowing in misery here, just a liberating plunge into lurid, cathartic heaviosity with the same blend of eccentricity and conviction that characterises the best doom metal, be it Cathedral, Solstice, Corrupted or Thergothon.
The first disc is the weaker of the two - it seems the songs are only so long because they had so many ideas lying around that needed to be used up. However, though they have an element of the aimless jam about them, this 'everything must go!' approach doesn't make the songs seem uneven and meandering as much as it lends them a poignant-but-urgent vitality - all the more so because the recording doesn't seem to stop in the gaps between tunes. Disc two, however, is virtually flawless. 'One Last Time', 'Caesar Forever' and 'Anywhere Out Of This World' are brilliantly-structured, compelling epics with inter-band dynamics at maximum crackle, possibly the best songs the band ever recorded. Each member excels both individually and together; Peter Vicar's basswork is thunderous and imaginative, Earl Void's drumming punctuates and devastates with tight-but-loose precision, Albert's riffs slither and engorge with a much fatter and darker tone than previously and his vocals reach an all-time high, expressive and emotive but alien and deranged.
There is an air of cynical impermanence about most band splits these days, like they've already got the reunion tour booked three years in advance. It might be naivete, but it doesn't seem that way with Reverend Bizarre. They've made their point, and these monstrous, impassioned last rites ram it home more powerfully than ever before.
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