Lord Vicar - Fear No Pain

Endless pain hurts my soul

But no cry can be heard

Just some whispers escape my teeth

As I curse this land

I am a man who has nothing

Without your love I can't go on

When I laid down your frozen hand

I let go life

Now the dream is almost over

Sands of Time are running lower

Through broken glass

One could argue that Lord Vicar largely continues on from where Reverend Bizarre left off and not be wrong at all. There are plenty of moments throughout Fear No Pain that feel like Reverend Bizarre if Chritus was their vocalist. The guitar tone remains uncompromisingly heavy, with the ever-present driving bass lines to accompany the main riff. Chritus’s vocals sound utterly strained and beyond hope, as a man hanging on to his sanity by a hair’s breadth. The best asset that the band has, however, is the ability to make long songs not seem as long as they are. Other bands seem to have the opposite issue; their songs are shorter, but they drag on more. This is a problem that Lord Vicar luckily does not face. Even the 14 minute closing track, “The Funeral Pyre”, seems relatively short, especially in comparison to the excessively long tracks on Reverend Bizarre’s final outing, So Long Suckers. “The Funeral Pyre” is actually shorter than the time it takes for the track “Sorrow” on the previously mentioned album to even get going, for comparison’s sake.

Lord Vicar can be summed up, albeit unfairly, as a distillation of the more rocking spirit found in the uptempo moments of Reverend Bizarre’s discography; looking at the song credits should reveal this fact to be not terribly surprising, as Peter Vicar’s name tends to have been tied to these tracks more often than not. There really is no way humanly possible to not be moved by the main riff in “A Man Called Horse”, barring deafness. Likewise, “Pillars Under Water” and “The Last of the Templars” provide similarly addictive grooves, escape from which is not an option, let alone a desirable one. In addition to the colossal riffing, however, there are a few very effective acoustic passages, accompanied by some powerful and evocative vocal performances by Chritus, especially the one that closes “The Spartan,” which recounts the emotional final moments of a fallen warrior. There are also sparsely used keyed instruments, which were occasionally featured in Reverend Bizarre as well.

Some of these songs, or at least parts of these songs, were originally written for the now panned fourth and fifth Reverend Bizarre albums that were planned to be recorded before they decided to fold. Lord Vicar brings forth one last glimpse of what could have been, had things gone differently between the dysfunctional personalities that once defined Reverend Bizarre. I’m sure this project has come as a great consolation to the many who mourned the loss of Peter Inverted’s former band, and they do an admirable job of appeasing the older fans who have carried over as well as being their own band. I suspect that future recordings may continue to differentiate the two bands, though it would be impossible (and unwanted) to bury Peter’s distinctive riffing style simply because it is coming under a new heading. For now, however, comparisons between the two projects are not only fair, and not only warranted, but inevitable.

As much as many of the musical passages throughout the album reflect the musical history of the songwriter, this band’s lyrics also bear resemblance to their predecessors in their penchant for favoring historical and legendary tales of doom, betrayal, and despair. Where Reverend Bizarre had “Cromwell”, “Cirith Ungol”, “The Wandering Jew”, and “Caesar Forever”, Lord Vicar has “Down the Nails”, “Pillars Under Water”, and “The Spartan”. Unsurprisingly, “The Spartan” recounts the fate of the legendary three hundred Spartan warriors who fought against insurmountable odds, knowing that there was no chance that they would survive, simply because it was their honor and their way of life. “Pillars Under Water” follows more along the lines of “Cirith Ungol” in its inspiration from fictional literature, the latter coming from Tolkien and the former coming from Lovecraft. In this song, the protagonist finds himself at the mercy of the Children of Dagon, coming face to face with the ancient, unspeakable horrors that one hopes lurk only in our faintest nightmares. “Down the Nails” speaks of the apostle Peter, who denies Jesus three times, his ultimate fate coming in the form of inverted crucifixion. Curious that Peter Vicar would choose to call himself Peter Inverted for this project then. The relation between the two is hardly impossible or even unlikely.

This is an album for doom metal fans; indeed, it’s not likely that many people unfamiliar with Reverend Bizarre or Count Raven or doom metal more broadly speaking would ever even stumble upon this album, let alone have the historical framework to fully appreciate it. For the initiated, however, Fear No Pain has a lot to offer. Perhaps it’s all not terribly original, but there is enough here to hold the interests of any true fan of this form of music, whether it’s the continuation of Peter Vicar’s addictively rocking rhythms or the glorious return to form of Chritus, the legendary vocalist of Finnish legends Count Raven and on Saint Vitus’s highly underrated C.O.D. album. The band has already earned their deserved accolades from many of the key figures in today’s international doom metal scene for the quality and honesty of their musical output. Hopefully this is just the beginning for Lord Vicar, picking up where Reverend Bizarre left off and running with it well beyond the boundaries of the latter.