Paul Chain - Alkahest (Godhead Recordings, 1995)
The Goat of fire in me ablaze
Oh cosmic furnace I behold
In Hades summer you live there
I've pulled you through the seven gates
Dude. You want to know who "gets" doom? Paul Fucking Chain, that's who. Chain, who was born Paolo Catena 6,000 years ago in what's now known as Italy, started off as a guitarist in the also-Italian Steve Sylvester's Death SS. Something tells me Chain was a little too out there for the rest of the bunch, and at some point our dark hero ventured off on his own and formed Paul Chain Violet Theater, an experimental doom outfit that balanced weird found sound samples and Sabbath worshipping doom pretty evenly.
Chain never really broke through, though, maybe because of his penchant for low-fi, long-form improvisations, maybe because he just didn't give a fuck. Maybe it's because he couldn't speak English, and rather than sing his (very good) lyrics in the language in which they were written, he sang what he thought they might sound like in English, peppered with a few words he did know: Hell, Animal, Satan, you get the picture. Listening to his catalogue chronologically, you can actually hear the dude get better at English, but he never gives up on singing around the words he has written, rather than actually singing them.
Which brings us to Alkahest, and "Voyage to Hell", the song I quoted above. Alkahest pretty much marks Chain's best work, both from a production and songwriting perspective. It also features one of many famous collaborators, one Lee Dorrian of epic doomsters Cathedral and, Napalm Death, who don't need an introduction. Dorrian sings "Voyage to Hell", and although Chain's original version on Detaching From Satan is great for all it's weirdness, it's Dorrian's vocals that really put Chain's excellent songwriting on display.
Chain is definitely the type of musician that does better in a collaborative environment--the EP he made with Wino is fucking incredible, too--and has to tighten up his ever expanding imagination. The songs on Alkahest are filled to the brim with super heavy, catchy riffs, and spooky themes ,making it pretty much a perfect doom record and a must have for anyone into traditional doom, the occult, or metal in general. Paul Chain is the type of necessary force a scene needs to keep going, an unsung hero we can all root for and pretend to've known about all along.
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