Taurus - Life

Review by Natalie Zina Walschots. Originally published here by Exclaim.


Taurus are a psychedelic doom duo from Portland, OR, that are self-releasing Life as they prepare to support doomed and blackened folk band Agalloch on their summer tour. Taurus are composed of guitarist/vocalist Stevie Floyd (Dark Castle) and drummer Ashley Spungin (ex-Purple Rhinestone Eagle). Life is composed of a single 35-minute movement, which is divided into two parts, recorded live-off-the-floor in A Studio With No Name and mastered by James Plotkin. The fruits of their labours are drones and drools, shakes and shambles, a darkly monstrous and emotive piece of doom.

Photo by Karen A. Mann

Were this album an example of a literary genre, it could only be a work of horror. The atmosphere is as grim and ominous as mist rising from unhallowed ground, skulking around broken gravestones. The vocalizations are eerie and pained, the wails and moans of restless ghosts, while the drums crash like things breaking, somehow miserable. Rather than liner or circular, the structure of this drone project comes in waves, ebbs and flows that crash and then abate. While Life is undoubtedly a challenging and difficult work, it also leaves a cold ache in the joints and echoes in the listeners' head long after you stop listening.

[Go to the post to view the Bandcamp player]