Third album from Germany's Angel of Damnation, a doom band comprised of several scene veterans, including Sacred Steel's Gerrit Mutz and former Manilla Road drummer Neudi. Angel of Damnation's doom is built on a Sabbath foundation, so it isn't ponderously slow all the time and you can hear some of the bluesy/hard rock roots that inspired early doom pioneers. Anyone familiar with Mutz knows his vocals are distinctive, sometimes distracting, but here his style gives songs like "Stigmata" and "Lost in a World of Despair" some nice individuality, helping the whole album separate itself from the crowd of Candlemass/Solitude Aeturnus acolytes. I am reminded of Vestal Claret in some ways, like the soulful vocal lines and the guitars that achieve their heaviness via actual heavy riffs vs. relying solely on reverb or fuzz pedals. Ethereal Blasphemy is an album to check out if you want some doom that doesn't sound like everything else yet doesn't forsake the core sound of doom metal.