The Human Condition – Modern Maze (2011)

Arriving from the UK, today we have The Human Condition’s debut demo EP titled “Modern Maze”. In this 21 minute three track effort, the band delivers very effective Doom Metal songs that have that old-school vibe thanks to the well-crafted guitars and commanding bass guitar line. With most of the band members having previous band experience in the Doom Metal genre, it makes sense that The Human Condition’s sound is very well defined and effectively crafted.

Opening with the 7 minute “Modern Maze” song, this release kicks off with very typical Doom Metal sounding guitars and solid clean vocals. It usually takes us a while to get used to clean Doom vocals, but with Nathan Harrison, they sink in quickly. The riffing is very well crafted and it is properly mixed allowing everything else to shine the way it should. The pounding bass guitar line is nicely defined and the drums are pretty straight forward, but well-constructed.

“The Gifts I Gave” is our favorite song of this release thanks to the weeping solos around the 5 minute mark. We have always stated that you can’t have a good Doom Metal release with sad guitar solos, and The Human Condition does a great job in this department. The only WTF moment in this song is the high-pitched Heavy Metal scream used in this song that sounds way off from what the band is doing.

Things get a more emotional in the closing track “Pretending”, which has the best vocals of all the release. The melodic sections of this track are excellent and perfectly arranged to provide some epic headbanging moments. This track reminded us of Doom bands like Autumn and similar ones that use the clean vocals to make the songs sound more depressing instead of going the more ‘traditional’ Heavy Metal-like way like Candlemass and similar bands.

Overall, “Modern Maze” is an excellent Doom Metal release that showcases the band member’s experience in playing this genre. With only three songs, we are sure that this demo will leave everybody wanting for more. If you are in the market for well written Doom Metal music, we suggest you check this one out.

Release: June 30th, 2011

Country: UK