SERPENT THRONE desperately seeking Ozzy.

November 26, 2009 | by Joseph Rose | Album Reviews

Serpent Throne can be summed up very easily. It’s old Black Sabbath without the vocals. Heck, they even have the Gibson SG to go with it. Well, actually it isn’t a real SG, it’s a copy made by Guild. The ongoing theme with Serpent Throne seems to be, sorta like the real thing, but not really. The all too familiar retro-styled album cover and the myspace genre listing of “Rock / Classic Rock” seems to be false advertising for a group of young dudes playing instrumental music.

Despite the fact that they get zero points for originality, the music is quite good. Surprisingly so. They stick to the Sabbath playbook, piecing together one brooding, mid-tempo, heavy blues-based riff after another, without any of the unnecessary virtuosic instrument wanking that so many instrumental artists get bogged down with. None of the songs feel like they drag on for too long, and they all keep the mood perfectly in place.

SerpentThrone_TheBattleOfOldCrow “Led By Vultures” and “White Buffalo” might be the most blatant examples of Rock N Roll copycatting ever. In fact, it would not surprise me one bit to read about Tony Iommi suing this band one day for stealing these songs from his studio and releasing them. And man, just seeing the word “Led” in the title just takes the whole “we are classic rock” shtick over the top.

If I hadn’t spent my entire life being very aware of Black Sabbath, I might be able to like these guys a lot more. As good as they are at what they do, it’s hard to get past how overly derivative the sound is. It’s weird to write what is probably categorized as a bad review for a band that I think sounds really good, but if they want to be a cover band, they should just get it over with.

Serpent Throne on Myspace: myspace.com/serpentthrone

About Joseph Rose

Joseph is a father, a music production teacher, and a front man. He consumes as much music as he does pizza. And that's a lot.

Chris Marker

You're fucking stupid.
Joseph_Rose

To quote Serpent Throne themselves:
"INFLUENCES: Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer, Budgie, old Judas Priest, Flower Travellin Band, 70s Scorpions, Leafhound, Pentagram, Pagan Altar, Sir Lord Baltimore, Wishbone Ash, Satan."

They list Sabbath first, don't list King Crimson at all, and Sabbath pre-dates both of those other bands.

Also taken straight from the bands bio:
"...In order to calm down the crowd of heavy rockers, Iommi grabs a couple dudes from the other bands and puts together an emergency band. And then Uli Roth says, "We don't need a singer because he'll just get in the way of the riffs." I think that's what Serpent Throne is aiming for."

Yeah, I think the guys in the band would agree that Black Sabbath is the primary influence. Calm down.
bored

wow, your dumb, they take more from wishbone ash and king crimson and put a modern groove to it then anything else.......figures the only band you could compare them to would be the over played and over-rated black sabbath.......try to listen to something vh-1 and rock radio have not fed you for once. lame review.
bored

wow, your dumb, they take more from wishbone ash and king crimson and put a modern groove to it then anything else.......figures the only band you could compare them to would be the over played and over-rated black sabbath.......try to listen to something vh-1 and rock radio have not fed you for once. lame review.