If you break Doom Metal down into it's fundamental origins, the genre is largely made up of two types of bands. OK, we need to firstly discount the numerous sub-genres such as Sludge, Stoner and so on and focus on what the traditionalist would call true Doom. In the first camp we have the mournful down tuned harpengers of all things slow, verses the more upbeat rock influenced Doomers; of which Belgium's Serpent Cult most certainly fall into the later of the two categories. With their mid tempo approach, there is more Trouble about the band than many of the drone clones out there.

"Trident Of Fire", the bands debut release offers up three original and one cover track and from the opening bars of "The Harvest" you are confronted with bombastic bass loops and a pure rock groove. The surprise package is the bands vocalist Michelle. An unknown to yours truly prior to this release but certainly one of the more memorable female vocalists out there. Described by the band themselves as an 'air raid siren' style of vocals, this doesn't really accurately articulate the Michelle's range demonstrated on the E.P; no more so than on the bands rendition of the classic Uriah Heep cover of "Rainbow Demon", where David Byron himself would be proud.

There are of course distinctive parallels to The Plague Of Gentlemen on a very basic level, and compressions are unavoidable given the bands intermingled history. This is however rather an injustice as Serpent Cult offer up a richer more rock influenced sound, that elevates them beyond the ground trodden by the previously mentioned TPOG, and on this showing 2008's full length debut album should prove to be a treat for all Doomers and Metal-Heads alike.