"Never Learned" is an apropos track title, as
Grand Magus seems to be stuck in a time capsule, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. The Swedish threesome revels in all things doomy and bell-bottomed, with tempos ranging from slow and chugging to slower and droning. Vocalist
Janne at times wails like a poor-man's
Chris Cornell, and the group often employs what sounds like a Southern rock drawl in the instrumentation, not unlike latter-period
Corrosion of Conformity discs, but the obvious references are
Sabbath,
Deep Purple, and anything else from the dawning era of plod rock. What little it does in terms of breaking new ground, however, this eponymous debut more than makes up for in terms of volume, intensity, and some of the meatiest riffs this side of
the Obsessed. ~ Brian O'Neill