Patriarchs In Black – Home Review
By Saunders
Random dunks into the promo sump yield a variety of interesting, if uneven results. The element of risk and getting lumped with an unlistenable dud is counteracted by the odd chance of scooping up an unheralded stunner, or the next big thing. New York/New Jersey duo of scene veterans Dan Lorenzo (Hades, Non-Fiction) and Johnny Kelly (Type O Negative, Quiet Riot, Danzig) formed Patriarchs In Black several years back. Despite a relatively short career, the duo, armed with various guest musicians and vocalists, arrive at their fourth album, simply titled Home. Featuring an array of well-known and lesser-known guests, it almost feels like a compilation rather than a traditional album. This is especially evident through the varied musical terrain the seasoned vets traverse, exploring diverse and occasionally questionable musical territory with impressive ambition and a broad sense of adventure. Can this genre-hopping, vocal-swapping fest hit the mark and result in a compelling and cohesive listening experience?
Home is an odd duck album, both adventurous and perplexing. At nearly an hour in length, Patriarchs in Black cram tons of material and excessive ideas into its weighty runtime, featuring a colorful cast of supporting characters, predominantly filling the restlessly shifting vocal duties. Musically, Lorenzo and Kelly boast big match experience and tight, punchy chops as they hyperactively shift between genres. The album fits both comfortably and loosely under the stoner/doom metal banner, yet this label only scratches the surface of the band’s repertoire. Elements of hard rock, southern rock, blues, nü, modern alt rock/metal, rap rock, and a swathe of ’80s and ’90s metal influences, lending retro flavors to the more contemporary and streamlined modern rock and metal tropes. It’s the old everything but the kitchen sink approach for better and worse.
A snapshot of the guest vocalists finds contributions from Mark Sunshine (Unida, RiotGod), Kyle Thomas (Exhorder, Alabama Thunderpussy), Karl Agell (ex-Corrosion of Conformity, Legions of Doom), Dewey Bragg (Kill Devil Hill), John Kosco (Dropbox) and Rob Traynor (Black Water Rising) amongst others. Sunshine’s impressive pipes feature most prominently, including channeling Axl Rose and Chris Cornell on the sludgy, grungy groove of “Burn Through Time,” while adding some melodramatic theatrics with mixed results on “Celestial Yard.” Opener “Hymns for the Heretic” benefits from the well-worn grit of Kyle Thomas’s vox, pairing with infectiously bluesy, heavy rock-drenched riffage and fat stoner grooves. “The Call” keeps momentum rolling, as veteran Agell punches out an inspired performance atop a beefy and melancholic doomy rock base. “Storm King” is another gritty, noteworthy cut, riding some infectious, Clutch-esque grooves, featuring booming riffs and vocal grunt. Shit gets decidedly weirder as the strange journey hits some left-field bumps. “Kaos” livens energy and aggression, throwing down some angsty, goofy vox and meatheaded grooves to jarring, nü metal-adjacent effect. There are ill-advised, lamely executed rap rock ditties (“Where You Think You’re Going,” “Ready to Die”), and a decent modern blues rock number (“Enough of You”) that sounds awkwardly out of place, even by the album’s haphazard standards.
Throw in a couple of overcooked songs lengthwise, and short, questionable interludes, including the jokey “The End,” a fittingly silly way to climax the album, and you are left with a unique and strange album. Home has fun elements and a handful of enjoyably groovy tunes and inspired vocal additions. Lorenzo and Kelly are skilled, seasoned musicians, sounding as though they are having loads of fun across intersecting and occasionally disparate genres, excelling most when delivering thick, bluesy stoner doom riffs and swaggering grooves. Unfortunately for all its charms and oddities, Home remains hamstrung by numerous less-than-stellar factors bogging it down. The length and choppy nature of the writing song-to-song makes for an overloaded, inconsistent and messy front-to-back listen. And while never dull, it’s an exhausting listen, marred by sizable missteps and too many clunky moments to overcome.
One of the more intriguing albums I’ve heard in 2025, Home is an odd curiosity that could eventually fit into a time capsule equivalent of ’90s Metal Weirdness. While there are solid tunes and cool jams scattered across the album, the pros are dragged down by the cons. Entertaining and confounding in nearly equal measures, Home is hampered by considerable bloat, clunky flow and ill-advised experiments and stylistic decisions, resulting in a curious, if sadly mixed bag collection. Worth a listen to cherry-pick the gems, but prepare yourself for a rocky journey.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Metalville
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases worldwide: August 15th, 2025
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