Oh Doom metal, you’ve never done me wrong before, so why start with Suburban Leprosy? No, it’s actually a good release, but I can’t tell if these New Zealanders are joking around. The traits are all there, spooky vocal intro, chimes, atmospheric keyboard work and the quality recording of radio shack mics plugged into a dying cassette recorder that happens to be in the belly of a beached whale.

But the name of the band and the title of two of the tracks, “Bohemian Leprosy” and “Portrait of Leprosy in Three Colors: all black”, that fact that Chad the Templar plays “drooms” just keeps leaving me on the fence about whether or not to take it seriously. And maybe that’s a condemnation of the genre that a group so tongue in cheek with it’s packaging can still provide a really great sound.

Snippits of songs seem to come and go, twelve generations of tape hiss and static take center stage on more than half the disc and it’s really hard to tell separation of the 4 tracks as listed on the back sleeve. Maybe they are pulling a Royal Trux and the track titles are arbitrary, but the rumbling squall that is in the disc is really good. 7/10 -- Andrew Murdock Livingston (11 November, 2009)