Camel of Doom was formed in 2002 by Kris Clayton, then aged 14. After a series of solo records, Kris pulled together a live line-up and the band performed a number of shows throughout 2004/2005. Playing with other musicians helped to develop and hone the sound, as showcased on ‘Self Titled’ and ‘The Diviners Sage’ albums.
The full line-up disbanded towards the end of 2005, and Kris temporarily shelved the band in favour of other projects, first with death-doomsters Imindain and then with the UK’s own Esoteric. After a few aborted attempts, Kris started working alone on the band again at the end of 2009. Two projects were started simultaneously, the re-recording of some of the very earliest material, which was released in 2011 as ‘The Night After Time’, and what would become the new album ‘Psychodramas: Breaking the Knots of Twisted Synapse’
The album was recorded, mixed and mastered at Priory Recording Studios by Esoteric mainman and long time collaborator Greg Chandler, and produced by Kris Clayton to finally realize the dream imagined when the band was formed 10 long years ago.
Melding together influences from Doom, Death Metal, Stoner Rock and 70's Psychedelic and Progressive rock genres, the record aims to be as heavy as it is trippy, as melodic as it is dissonant and as beautiful as it is twisted. This record takes the foundations built by earlier albums and adds to them, retaining the bands trademark ambient saxophone infused doom and creating new sounds with forays into blissed out vocoded post-rock and early 90's death metal, with brief stops into dark ambient and funeral doom along the way.
Lyrically, the album is a concept record built around empowerment through the subjugation of one’s own will – literally pulling yourself out of the mire of a broken mind and reassembling the pieces one by one. The three long songs each deal with the three main rituals of modern Satanism, compassion, sexual lust and destruction. The final piece is as the title suggests, The Manual for Self Hypnosis, forcing oneself into a trancelike state through ritual, or as often named, Psychodramas.