Relentless - Souls of Charon (2013)

   Relentless from Chicago, Illinois was guitarist Tim Pearson's heavy/doom metal project. He recruited a quite efficient group of musicians to recall the feeling of the '80s. Their different musical background ended up advantageous, for instance former country singer Carlee Jackson's powerful voice was well-fitting to strongly heavy metal influenced ominous doom themes.

   To decide if it was only a nostalgia project to give credits to the classics of the genre, or was it supposed to fill a long time missing gap in the actual metal scene, is the listener's job to do. However, both perspectives could be correct, especially cause despite the former widespread popularity and current cultic state of the style, not many bands willing to play in it. These are the most defining roots of doom metal, influenced by big names like Witchfinder General, Pentagram or Candlemass. Therefore the catchy heavy metal themes having determining role, even more than in case of the mentioned classics, to keep the music more intense than usual by staying on the border of genres. A commonly occurring problem among the few young bands, who are enough stubborn to play '80s heavy/doom metal anyway, that most simply cannot drift enough far from the classics (it's mainly because of the narrow borders of basic heavy metal), and they ending up as quite evident rip-off bands. Fortunately this wasn't the case about Relentless, probably because of the diverse background of the band members. And even if the analogy is obvious, the the whole thing sounds very familiar, their themes and approach didn't lack genuineness.