Hailing from Chicago, USA, Professor Emeritus immediately stand out from the crowd, due to their unusual name, and their distinct style. Their debut album Take Me To The Gallows was recorded between 2014 and 2016, and because of those dark times, it seems the musical content became even heavier. Perfect.
Burning Grave starts things off. Slow and heavy, a big fat sound on the guitars, accompanied by the vocals of a lion, a lion that’s about to rip you to shreds and make you watch. As the tempo increases so too, does that belief that everything’s about to go tits up. Brilliant. He Will Be Undone is next, Sabbath is written over this song, in the tempo, which slow, slower than a snail, the riffs are heavy, heavier than perhaps anything that the father of metal, Tony Iommi himself has ever come up with, and the vocals, the vocals are brilliant. The doom train has well and truly started rolling. Chaos Bearer picks things up a notch, with a galloping rhythm, soaring vocals and a crunch that seems to be a defining feature. Take Me To The Gallows, the title track on the record, is slow, and heavy. It seems as though the devil came home for dinner, and brought his friends.
Rats In The Walls is next, with biting riffs, harmonised riffs, full throttle vocals and pounding drums, this is a song that will get the crowd going again after they’ve been pummelled by the previous numbers. Rosamund is a growl worthy song, and as such stands tall and proud. Then there is Decius, the closer, simply put it is an epic song, and at ten minutes that is just how it should be.
Their debut album is bound to get Professor Emeritus all the right kind of attention, enough to get them going and onto a legion of fans. They’ve shaken things up in the doom world, and this album has to be on record players everywhere. 10/10