Lost Breed – Wino Daze (At War With False Noise)
One of the great things about music that has survived an extended lack of popularity comes when largely unheard relics created by long-unheralded practitioners are brought to light, usually when some belated interest in the genre happens to develop. Doom metal, though the oldest subset of metal as a whole, had until recently suffered this dearth of widespread appreciation.
Lost Breed – Wino Daze (At War With False Noise)
One of the great things about music that has survived an extended lack of popularity comes when largely unheard relics created by long-unheralded practitioners are brought to light, usually when some belated interest in the genre happens to develop. Doom metal, though the oldest subset of metal as a whole, had until recently suffered this dearth of widespread appreciation. Its snail pace was often seen as devoid of the cathartic power that came with metal’s more uptempo material, its reliance on Sabbath-isms a willful anachronism. But recent years have seen the style coming once again to the forefront, with bands both old and new turning up in places that would have been inconceivable only a few years ago (not too many fans of this sort of thing would have likely anticipated NPR’s recent coverage of bands like Witch Mountain or Pallbearer). And with this revival of interest came the unearthed gems, the material that stood pretty much no chance of any widespread popularity at the point that it was created, but has subsequently proven to be far enough ahead of its time, behind it, or both, that the recent receptivity of listeners can at last give it a deserved audience.
Even the most ardent doom fan could be forgiven for not having heard of Lost Breed, one of a number of artists released by Hellhound Records, alongside such second-tier traditionalists as Iron Man, Internal Void, and Count Raven. These bands, though certainly not bad, did little more for the genre than carry the torch in some of its darker years. On the other hand, even listeners with the most passing interest in the style should know Scott “Wino” Weinrich, who has helmed some of the genre’s most lasting and influential bands; among them Saint Vitus, The Obsessed (both of whom provided the biggest names on the aforementioned Hellhound roster), Spirit Caravan, the Hidden Hand, and Shrinebuilder. What wasn’t commonly known was that, for a period of nine months in 1988, Weinrich assumed vocal duties for the then-nascent Lost Breed during a brief hiatus from Saint Vitus. The resulting demo recordings – occasionally bootlegged, but not officially released for almost two decades – are the sort of genuinely inspired material, done for the love of the music instead an attempt to win any popularity contests, that’s come to define much of the recent retrospective analysis of doom’s early origins.
Weinrich is blessed with a voice that, if nothing else, is unmistakable. No matter what he’s done, from the heaviest dirge to the quiestest acoustic material, his music sounds like him (with the possible exception of his brief stint playing bass for the Mentors), a distinctly difficult endeavor in a genre rife with imitation. The Lost Breed recordings are unsurprisingly no exception. Though his voice isn’t as haggard as it would become in later years, it is, as the cliche states, what it is. Though the rest of the music certainly falls within the trad-doom parameters into which most of his output comfortably fits, Lost Breed’s approach was considerably catchier and more accessible than the nihilistic dirge of Saint Vitus or the bluesy stoner rock of The Obsessed. While there’s no shortage of slow trudging, the songs rely on a wider stylistic range, juxtaposing the dirgier moments with NWOBHM-influenced passages featuring harmonized guitars and galloping rhythmic drive, which are in turn interspersed with occasional quiet moments that verge on psychedelia.
It’s difficult to tell whether Wino Daze will join the ranks of doom’s unholy grails. It lacks the sort of back story that helped sell Pentagram to a wider audience during their many attempts at a comeback, and the production and songwriting may be too polished and catchy (despite being demo recordings) for some of the genre’s more die-hard purists, especially those expecting something that sounds closer to any of Scott Weinrich’s other bands. But it’s more than just some footnote in doom metal’s annals. There is enough of an inspired energy present, a sufficient degree of defiance towards what was popular in favor of what has proven memorable, that these early Lost Breed recordings stand on their own merit – not simply as some long-lost hidden treasure, but as a solid and well-executed glimpse of a style’s progenitors in their prime.
