Bring Me the Horizon –
Sempiternal
Genre:
Metalcore/Post-Rock
For
lack of a better word, Bring Me the Horizon are one of the most
forward-thinking and imaginative metalcore bands making music today.
From their deathcore inception seven years ago with Count
Your Blessings,
to their undeniable peak with Suicide
Season,
the British act have treated their sound as a fluid construct –
molding it as they wish with each subsequent release. 2010's There
is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It, There is a Heaven Let's Keep it a
Secret drew
simultaneously the ire and approval of their listeners, alienating a
fanbase that wanted Suicide
Season 2.0
while firmly stating that they weren't content to sit around and
chug. There is a
Hell was
a transition record, and as such stumbled and slipped quite a bit as
the band tried to work a This Will Destroy You-style influence into
their music, while keeping the obtuse, obnoxious heaviness of
previous outings. After retiring to the English wilderness to write
their new album, April saw the release of Sempiternal.
In
a word, Sempiternal
picks
up the slack There
is a Hell allowed
itself, molding
the
melody, clean vocals, echoed guitarwork the
band tried to put forward in 2010 with frontman Oli Sykes' signature
compressed yell and just enough thickness to have the two work
together flawlessly. Like most metalcore bands, BMTH play it fast and
loose, filling each song to the brim with enough hooks and ebullient
vocals, but there's just as much of a rejection of elements that
people have chided the band for – you've got a breakdown now and
then, but the transition is flawless and they never serve to detract
from the music. Post-rock elements fly about at top speed, whether
it's layered guitar and synths, or a big ol' ambient section ('And
the Snakes Start to Sing') and BMTH remains the first and only band
in the genre that can pull them off. Both
influences – Norma Jean and Explosions in the Sky – get space on
this record, and the nostalgic, -core-heavy pieces are balanced out
by lighter, more open passages and entire songs.
Just
as well, Sempiternal
is
(surprise) a profoundly negative record, which shouldn't surprise
anyone who's heard the band's previous output, but it's a very
focused negativity, this time alighting on religion, and for all of
its mostly juvenile angst - “Middle fingers up if you don't give a
fuck!” howls 'Antivist' – a few songs ('Hospital For Souls' and
'Shadow Moses' to name two) are a touch more personal and deal with
death on an individual level (which, as an aside, is the concept of
one of my favorite albums of all time), and while Sempiternal
still
features some pretty terrible lyrics, the band's willingness to look
at some actual serious subject matter is commendable, and hopefully a
sign of further maturation.
There's
that word again – mature.
It's almost a joke in -core that when a band stops playing breakdowns
about cheating whores and learns how to play competent music, their
sound really
matures maaan and
they morph into 'regular hardcore'. What's missing from that model is
that maturation is a very slow, subtle, subjective process – look
at people, it takes us nearly eighteen years to mature biologically
but who's a functional adult at 18? Sempiternal,
and, indeed, the band's output as a whole, are more reflective of
that laborious, but ultimately rewarding process. Are BMTH
done? Absolutely not, but they're making good
progress.
Notable
Songs: 'And the Snakes Start to Sing', 'Sleepwalking', 'Empire (Let
them Sing)'.
Woe
– Withdrawal
Genre:
Black Metal
Woe,
the Philadelphia black metal act that began life as the one-man
project of multi-instrumentalist Chris Grigg, has seen its share of
ups and downs. Following the release of the stellar A
Spell For the Death of Man in
2008, Grigg expanded Woe to feature full-time members for other
instruments besides guitar, and the result was 2010's ultimately
forgettable Quietly,
Undramatically.
It was energetic, delectably heavy and catchy as sin, but lacked
staying power and came off as stateside Taake worship (aside, I saw
Taake at their first North American show ever and it was awesome,
you Euros have it lucky).
A
Spell For the Death of Man's
charm was that it combined the near-accessibility of bands like Krieg
and Taake while simultaneously brutally injecting its own epic
passages and portions – the explosion at the start of 'Solitude' is
always awesome, and for the most part that trend is continued in
Withdrawal,
the band's newest effort. Opening track 'This is the End of the
Story' wastes no time, as Grigg's delectable guitar tone and the
ridiculous drumming of Ruston Grosse never quite lets up for a good
chunk of the record.
Withdrawal's
saving grace, however, is that it continues A
Spell For the Death of Man's
ideas while throwing a barrage of flawlessly executed new ideas at
you – need a breakdown? There's a breakdown in 'Carried By
Remorseless Waves to the Shores of Truth'. Clean vocals? Look no
further than the aforementioned 'This is the End of the Story'. Woe
has always been an exercise in instrumental simplicity, as Grigg has
laughingly admitted he's not a very good guitarist, but simplicity
can work
well in black metal – see Filosofem
- and Woe are prime examples of it.
The
record's simplicity
works well because Woe's take
includes a good amount of melody, perfect production that's just
muddy enough to let the music spread around the listener as a cloak,
and enough inter-song variety to keep the record from going stale.
'Song of my Undoing', for instance, introduces itself with a heavy
metal-style riff and some wretched vocals before lapsing into an
ambient, churning passage with clean vocals and ringing chords.
Perhaps it's the fact that the riffs tend to repeat themselves, but
Withdrawal is
a highly catchy record, which
works in its favor to transcend the mistakes of Quietly,
Undramatically and
make an impression on the listener as an 'I really
like
this' (at least for me it was the case).
To
conclude, Woe have done it again – Withdrawal
is
an excellent record, emotional and oppressive yet rapid and
headbang-inducing. Check these guys out; it'll be well worth your
while.
Notable
Tracks: 'This is the End of the Story', 'Song of My Undoing',
'Exhausted'.
The
Ocean – Pelagial
Genre:
Progressive Metal
This
is one of those albums everyone rants and raves about, claiming it's
one of the best progressive records of the past five years, that it's
the Ocean's breakout record, blah blah blah, and that I listen to,
shrug, and say “it's pretty good”. The Ocean have always
completely failed to make an impact on me – Heliocentric
and
Anthropocentric
were
decent, if unremarkable, albums, while Precambrian
was
a pretty good time. That being said, for a band that's been around
for almost twelve years to just
now figure
out how to be memorable is, to be blunt, a tad embarrassing.
In
any case, Pelagial
is
a concept album, as the Ocean are wont to make, exploring the various
levels of (appropriately) the ocean. Predictably, the deeper the band
travels the heavier their music gets, but that's only grazing the
surface (no pun intended) of what Pelagial
has
to offer. With Pelagial,
the German band's mostly stabilized lineup finally puts out a record
worth listening to more than once, and packs every second full of
expertly molded prog technicality and intensity.
There's
a healthy shoegaze element to a lot of this record that contrasts
with the heavier, more abrasive metal passages, resulting in an
interplay between loud and soft that gives lots of songs a more epic,
anthemic feel as the band moves between meditative and triumphant.
But that's not to say Pelagial
is
all smooth sailing (hehe I could go on for hours), there's plenty of
chaos as the record moves along, progressing deeper into the abyss.
'Demersal',
the record's penultimate track, is claustrophobic and dissonant, and
more classically 'metal' than the rest of the album. 'Demersal'
features almost no clean vocals, and at almost nine minutes, it's
intense and dark, perfectly echoing the atmosphere the band was going
for. On the other hand, 'Bathyalpelagic II', which is closer to the
surface, is a bigger and more melodic song, and one of the better
offerings the record puts forward by mixing the two moods the Ocean
play with into a nautical epic. Meanwhile,
'Benthic' closes the record with a crushing, abrasive monolith of a
track, the memories of sunlit waters from the start of the album now
a distant memory.
What
makes Pelagial one
of the best records by the band is that, as they did with
Precambrian,
the Ocean paint massive soundscapes, and even released an
instrumental version of the album.
With regards to atmosphere, this is a godsend because the Ocean shine
the brightest when they're translating a landscape into music – see
my appreciation for their previous record Precambrian.
With Pelagial,
the order and chaos of the instrumentals echo the crash of waves of
the sea, and while
the deeply personal lyrics and vocal talent of Loic Rossetti are
interesting additions, adding thoughtful discourse to 20,000 Leagues
Under the Sea, the fact that plunging headfirst into the ocean with
an instrumental album is a possibility is a welcome bonus.
I
do quite
like this record – it's a damn good progressive outing, with just
enough sludginess in the latter portions to satisfy the heavy-seeking
demon in me, but what I don't understand about it is why everyone is
trumpeting Pelagial
as
the album of the year. Hell, even in the progressive category, I can
name three other bands who put out material I was more attached to
than this record. Is it good? Very, but is it the best this year? Far
from it.
Notable
Tracks: 'Mesopelagic', 'Bathyalpelagic II', 'Abyssopelagic II'.
Eibon
– II
Genre:
Doom/Sludge Metal
When
you think of sludge, you think of some deranged Iowa
redneck yowling into a microphone while his similarly intoxicated
friends crash away drunkenly on their instruments. Eyehategod,
Crowbar, Thou...all a proud 'Murrican creation. The Savannah and
Louisiana sludge scenes have birthed massive players in the metal
world – the almighty Mastodon among them – and thus it's a huge
surprise when a sludge band comes out of nowhere, or,
in the case of Eibon, from France.
French
metal leans
overwhelmingly towards the blackened side of things – hell, there
was a Gallic equivalent to the Norwegian Inner Circle during the
genre's early days (Les Légions Noires) and the country has spawned
acts like Peste Noire and Seth. Eibon, on the other hand, came
crashing out of Paris in 2010 with a filthy mess dubbed Entering
Darkness
– six wretched, drawn-out sessions of filth – and returned this
past April with two mammoth songs packaged together as their newest
record, simply entitled II.
This
record is heavy – like, really
heavy.
Like, the feedback intro at the start of 'The Void Settlers' is
bigger and more intimidating than you'd
think.
Their only precedence Entering
Darkness,
the motley crew of Frenchmen roar into being with a fast, borderline
catchy riff and immediately begin to lay waste to everything in their
path.
II
as
a record deals with World War I, and the dark, punishing riffs,
macabre samples and throat-shredding vocals contribute to the chaos
and terror of the trenches and the repulsiveness of the conflict.
Eibon love to discuss death in their lyrics, and appropriately picked
one of the most brutal conflicts in human history to assault your
ears with, and as the instrumentals crash like mortar
shells around you, you can almost smell the mustard gas in the air.
Sludge
in particular is known for landing on a great riff and proceeding to
play the hell out of it, and Eibon deliver on that premise especially
effectively, playing patiently and yet immensely on the record's two
massive (over seventeen minute) long songs. Of the two, the second
piece 'the Elements of Doom' is doom-ier in terms of its ponderous
gait and immense proportions, while 'the Void Settlers' takes a lot
more from Eyehategod to deliver a faster, but not any less crushing
choice. Both support each other, and despite their lengths
II flies
by. Every note, every break, and every massive void is expertly
placed to be at its most destructive, and just when interest starts
to wane Eibon are there to grab you roughly and pull your attention
back to the battlefields of the Great War, reeling you in with the
captivating drumwork of Jerome LaChaud, who beats the hell out of the
skins during the record's forty minutes of torture.
Oddly
enough, the closest band to Eibon's sound is actually Cult of Luna –
when you compare the methodical, pummeling anger of early 'Luna
records like the
Beyond or
their self-titled, the link between them and Eibon flares into being.
It's bizarre to think about, considering Cult of Luna put out the
mind-bending Vertikal
last
January, while Eibon are as primitive as it comes, but the influence
is definitely there. There's
also even a black metal-type portion on 'Elements of Doom' to shake
things up.
To
conclude, II is
an awesome, if catastrophically brief, trip back in time. Eibon are
two-for-two when it comes to awesome records, so whatever they choose
to do next is definitely likely to be awesome.
IRN
– IRN
Genre:
Doom Metal/Sludge Metal
But
we're not just done with pummelling, crusty sludge yet. IRN are a
doom band from Toronto that I had the pleasure of seeing open for
Dopethrone this past October. The band's self-titled record, which
was released this past April, is their bone-crushingly brutal debut,
and similar to Eibon's second, features three lengthy tracks, with
the eighteen-minute first track 'Adrift Between Burned Out Villages'
predominating. It's an unfortunately short record, clocking in at a
little under thirty-three minutes, making it a quick, enjoyable
listen if you're in the right (read: angry) enough mood.
Taking
equally from sludge, crust punk, and pure
noise, the first noticeable part of this album is notably
in just
how unapologetic
it
is. IRN pull no punches, assaulting you with waves of feedback and
mutilated, destructive columns of pure sound.
And
then...space.
As
a record, IRN's self-titled plays a lot with dynamics, shoving
merciless heaviness down your throat before lapsing into a vacuous,
unnerving void. The latter half of 'Adrift Between Burned Out
Villages', which features a misanthropic sample on overpopulation
amidst a few sparse, bizarre flecks of noise as the heaviness slowly
returns, is spine-chilling in its epicness, and even features what
you could almost call a '
The
remaining two tracks, 'Always Die Slowly' and 'Old Orange Hands', are
just as monolithic – 'Always Die Slowly' in particular is almost
Primitive Man-like in its size and delivery. It
begins with some fast percussion and features vocals much more
prominently, and
as long as I'm comparing this band to Eibon, IRN are by far the more
violent of the two – in many ways, this record is all about pure
fucking rage, and the music reflects that perfectly by
trampling you and then smushing you into the pavement. Words like
'monolithic' and 'unapproachable' kinda do it justice because that's
probably the sense this band was looking for a – juggernaut of
misanthropy and anger. Totally badass.
There's
not really much I can say about this record because I feel like I've
touched upon this record's main points – it's heavy,
it's slow, and it's psychopathic rage given form. Check it out for
thirty minutes you won't soon forget.
Aosoth
– IV: An Arrow in Heart
Genre:
Black Metal
Aosoth,
the French band who feature two ex-members of the influential and
legendary Antaeus, are a relatively new face in the sea of French
black metal bands, appearing in 2008 with their excellent self-titled
debut. Since then, they've churned out three similarly exemplary
records, with 2009's dark epic Ashes
of Angels
taking the cake for me. Their latest record, An
Arrow in Heart, however,
has Aosoth conveying their darkest and most unnerving mood yet,
echoing their countrymen in Deathspell Omega by stripping away the
heavy metal frivolities of black metal and instead shrouding the
record in a choking black mist.
When
people think of so-called 'ritualistic' black metal, they're thinking
of bands like Wolves in the Throne Room who lull the listener into a
trance by transporting them to the heart of the forest through
thunderous instrumentals evocative of waterfalls and night skies.
While
the same is somewhat true for Aosoth (minus the forest), the
ritualistic element comes in the form of bizarre, ambient sections,
such as the break on the title track, which
is echoed on 'Temple of Knowledge'
or the luminous, ghastly two-part song 'Broken Dialogue'. An
Arrow in Heart is
music to go along with satanic, candle-lit rituals at midnight -
equal parts epic and terrifying, and 100% crushing
darkness.
The
comparison to Deathspell Omega starts and ends with the mood of the
music – Aosoth aren't content to philosophize at length about the
nature of God, they're jumping straight to the sacrilege. The
interplay the record has between loud, death-metal inspired riffs and
quiet, sinister breaks makes An
Arrow in Heart as
schizophrenic as it is magnificent. But there's a method to this
madness, a lurking horror that sends shivers down your spine and
makes you look behind you during the fourteen-minute long closer
'Ritual Marks of Penitence'. The three-piece know exactly what mood
they're going for – apprehension, namely – and does their best to
make you feel it. The screeching, slid chords on 'One with the Prince
of a Thousand Enemies' that breaks into a ringing break is a perfect
example of
the malevolent majesty this album has.
Perhaps
it's because of the former members' experience in Antaeus, which was
similarly riff-heavy, but Aosoth, since their inception, seem to have
been blessed with innumerable ideas for riffs and how to exploit
them. Stepping away from the atmosphere for a moment, one realizes
that An Arrow in
Heart
features oodles of
ideas on the band's part, and under the umbrella of utter darkness
each one is explored deeply – with the exception of the drums,
which feature a lot of blast beats (as expected) but oscillate back
and forth between the front and back of the mix, adding another
element of chaos to the album. The
production is just murky enough to add to the record's bitter taste,
and with songs ending as unexpectedly as they start, An
Arrow in Heart is
an exercise in good black metal made well. Definitely worth a look.
Notable
Songs: 'Temple of Knowledge', 'Ritual Marks of Penitence', 'One With
the Prince of a Thousand Enemies'.
Killswitch
Engage – Disarm the Descent
Genre:
Metalcore
Time
for an unpopular opinion – I don't particularly like Killswitch
Engage. Yes, they're talented. Yes, they're responsible for mixing In
Flames and 90s hardcore into what we call metalcore today. Yes,
they're from Massachusetts, and yes songs like 'My Curse' and 'Rose
of Sharyn' are good, but the band has always left me thoroughly
unimpressed. I was far more bowled over by Avenged Sevenfold and
Maylene & the Sons of Disaster, who started out around the same
time as KSE.
Well,
it's 2013 and there's a new KSE album out, the first featuring former
vocalist Jesse Leach since he left the band in the early 2000s to
hand the throne over to baritone god Howard Jones, who himself left
the band last year. Disarm
the Descent
is unique and fresh in that, considering Jones lead the band on the
whinier side of things (see 'Arms of Sorrow', their entire 2009
album). Leach has
returned the band to the classic sound of records like Alive
or Just Breathing.
It's nice in that there's a shot of testosterone in a scene where the
average frontman is an effeminate stick screeching during breakdowns.
Disarm
the Descent runs
the gamut of what you'd expect from the band at this point – solid
riffs from talented guitarist Adam D., gruff vocals, epic
atmosphere,
and catchy hooks. But that's just the problem – Killswitch peaked
at Alive
or Just Breathing and
have been releasing steadily more mediocre records ever since, and
while Disarm
the Descent kinda
reverses the trend in that it's a step back towards what was the
band's commendable sound, it doesn't do enough. There
just isn't enough meat in this record for it to really pack a punch.
For
lack of a better word, Disarm
the Descent is
a drag. The songs all sound the same, and while the palm-muted
guitars have just enough -oomph to position the album above most of
metalcore, it doesn't change the fact that the album and the band
have been running on fumes for almost ten years now.
There
are a few good songs – 'The Call' and 'Beyond the Flames' are
badass metalcore anthems, but unfortunately it's all downhill from
there, bottoming out at the grating 'You Don't Bleed For Me', which
takes Leach's midrange vocals and Jones' annoyingly personal lyrics
and molds them to horrible results. The only reason these songs
couldn't have been confusd
for
a previous KSE album is because Leach is on vocals.
But
lest we forget, this is a step in the right direction. At this
record's best, it's a more epic Alive
or Just Breathing.
At its worst, it makes 2009's self-titled look sincere. Disarm
the Descent is
an album of extremes as the band sways precariously after Jones'
departure. I'm optimistic, though, that the next Killswitch outing
will be pretty damn good.
Notable
Tracks: 'The Hell in Me', 'Beyond the Flames', 'In Due Time'.
Shining
– One One One
Genre:
Progressive/Avant-Garde Metal
Being
the lowly plebian that I am, dabbling blindly
in music, I can't begin to comprehend what goes on in the insane
minds of Norway's Shining (not to be confused with Sweden's Shining,
the
renowned DSBM
act
of Niklas Kvarforth).
In 2010, the band released their bizarre, spastic magnum opus
Blackjazz,
which featured less structure than a car in a blender, mixing free
jazz velocity with metal's brutal kick into a spellbindingly unique
record. It made (and makes) less sense to me than string theory, but
good god it's
awesome.
One
One One is
the band's first since then, and as the bright orange cover art
shows, it's bold and here to make an impression, which it does within
the first three minutes. Never one for frivolities, Shining erupt
with 'I Won't Forget' and within seconds notes are flying around at
top speed, stopping only to let you breathe for a few seconds before
diving into 'the One Inside'.
What's
unique about One
One One (and
refreshing, considering I'd just finished listening to the new
Killswitch) is that, without prior knowledge, it could be a precursor
to Blackjazz,
with the band playing it much more tightly and conservatively –
although there's still plenty of anarchy to be had, as the various
instruments clang together dissonantly at the end of 'I Won't
Forget'.
One
One One is
almost catchy, playing up and taming the electronic elements that
whirled around at top speed on Blackjazz
while including more accessible elements like clean vocals and
infectious hooks. The result is, admittedly less chaotic and
classically 'avant-garde', but just as interesting to listen to. And
that's interesting because Shining have been transcending genres for
quite a while – before they had even a hint of metal blood in them
they played jazz, and use their expertise (and it truly can't be
called anything else) to crush tons of influences into one bizarre
piece of music.
Variety
is the name of the game here, from
the saxophone making a comeback at the start of 'How Your Story Ends'
to the nooks and crannies of the instrumental talent throughout the
entire album. Making avant-garde music requires you to think outside
the box, which the band have proven they're good at, but it's
impressive that Shining haven't yet run out of ideas. Indeed,
One One One can
be viewed as an experiment with the band centering the music around
the vocals, instead of the instrumental whirlwind of previous
outings, which featured equally structureless lyrics. This is one
area where the band have gotten some flack from critics, who see One
One One as
more tame than its predecessor and cite the looser structure of
Blackjazz
as better. Personally, I disagree with this outlook on Shining's
music, if only because I'm confident they knew exactly what they were
doing with this album. Shining don't mess around with stupidities –
if they experiment, they do it right.
Notable
Tracks: 'The Hunting Game', 'Paint the Sky Black', 'Off the Hook'.
Altar
of Plagues – Teethed Glory and Injury
Genre:
Post-Black
In
2000, a little-known Californian band called Weakling put out their
first and only record, Dead
as Dreams,
before abruptly and permanently disappearing. With their only legacy
four intensely long songs, Weakling's howled vocals and ambient
breaks amidst heavily sorrowful black metal sowed the seeds for what
many people would come to call post-black metal – an evolution of
black metal beyond the Norwegian ideas of the early 90s.
Altar
of Plagues, the Irish successors to Weakling's throne, have been
putting out lengthy and amazing music for the past seven
years. Equally
taking queues from Weakling and allowing their own commendable skills
room to breathe,
the Irish rockers are responsible for 2009's epic White
Tomb and
2011's monumental success Mammal,
which were massive undertakings of a scant few 10+ minute songs,
following the Weakling model.
Thus,
it was a surprise when the band put out Teethed
Glory and Injury this
past April, swapping long, melancholic narrations on the end of life
for tighter, more intense music. Not a single song breaks the ten
minute mark on this album, the longest being 'Twelve Was Ruin' at
nearly nine. Teethed
Glory and Injury retains
the pained Altar of Plagues sound, but compresses it into a tight,
claustrophobic space that empties and fills abruptly. To compare it
to their past work makes no sense, because this work stands squarely
by itself. It's undeniably Altar of Plagues, but strays so far from
their previous formula that it's almost like listening to a new band
at parts.
Previous
efforts by the band featured clean vocals at the zenith and climax of
various songs – the mournful 'I was young and you promised me...'
on 'All Life Converges to Some Center' springs to mind initially.
Teethed Glory
features
them much more prominently, such as during the ghostly break on
'Twelve was Ruin' or the tense 'God Alone'. Teethed
Glory flirts
with chaos – not nearly as much as Shining, but it's a highly
spastic record, and a new development from the band given they were
prone to vast, emotion-ridden soundscapes in previous outings. With
the exception of the effervescent introduction 'Mills', the record is
all about making the contrast between vacuous space and an empty room
as defined as possible.
James
O'Kelly's embittered roar makes a return, but the band has staunchly
refused to release any lyrics and, now that they've broken up (to my
inconceivable chagrin), it's unlikely we'll ever learn what the album
is about. Nevertheless, as before, O'Kelly's vocals never serve to
detract from the magical music, and he only strikes when the tension
is almost palpable. Altar of Plagues have always been good at making
emotional music – Mammal,
a record about death on a personal level, was almost tear-jerking in
how packed with feeling the music was. Teethed
Glory distances
itself from that goal, mixing the extroverted panic of White
Tomb with
the raw fury of Tides
or
Sol,
while sprinkling in a few electronic wobbles to add to the intensity
during the lighter portions – because even spontaneous emptying can
be scary.
That
Altar of Plagues are intensely talented musicians is no surprise, and
every individual listen yields something new to appreciate – the
drum leitmotif during the breakdown on 'God Alone', for instance,
recurs several times throughout the record. Alternatively, the
jolting disparity between 'Twelve Was Ruin' and the following 'Scald
Scar of Water' is flawless in its execution.
What's
most infuriating about this record isn't that the band broke up
abruptly in October, cementing their entire discography as amazing,
but that the album – indeed, their final album, the
last song Altar of Plagues will ever put out
– finishes on a goddamn crescendo.
'Reflection Pulse Remains' slowly mounts in intensity for six
minutes, blaring up to an epic finish – and then, silence. Again,
Teethed Glory is
about duality, up
until the very end, and at least they're going out with a bang.
Nine
songs are over far too quickly. Comparisons to Deafheaven's Sunbather
are
inevitable, but for me, at least, the gritty, imposing monolith of
Altar of Plagues' swan song is the clear winner. Spoiler: this is my
album of the year. Absolutely incredible.
Notable
Songs: 'God Alone', 'Twelve was Ruin', 'Found Oval and Final'.
Black
Pyramid – Adversarial
Genre:
Stoner Metal
Black
Pyramid are a western Massachusetts-based stoner metal band that
formed recently, and since have been highly regarded in the
underground. Known for their relentless, soldiers-marching riffs
amidst Dopesmoker-inspired
riffwork, the band have been solidly and valiantly riding to battle
with every successive release. Touting themselves as 'psychedelic war
metal', it's easy to see where they got the name from as they mix
down-tuned and distorted guitars with clean, sparkling 70s silliness.
Last year, after the release of their intense, excellent second
record, the band parted ways with then-vocalist and guitarist Andy
Beresky. For their latest endeavor Adversarial,
vocalist of local (at least, local to me) band Hackman, Darryl
Shepard took up the axe to deliver a sludgy, deliberate, heavy beast
of a record. Shepard's
vocals also echo all-stars like Matt Pike in their gruff, scratchy
timbre, adding to the badass atmosphere of the record.
Adversarial
begins
with a sprawling, thirteen-minute long march to battle 'Swing the
Scimitar', which features a healthy Sabbath and Pentagram influence
as it trudges along relentlessly, forming both the longest and
slowest Black Pyramid outing to date. Black Pyramid's sound from last
year's release, while just as plodding and epic, has gotten both
louder and heavier in volume, and this trend continues until the
abrupt blues-y third track 'Aphelion'. It's a sudden shift, but once
the dust clears from the transition away from its more nostalgic,
faster predecessor 'Issus'.
New
to this record is a sudden, welcome element of southern rock – if
Stevie Ray Vaughan had been a little more pissed, and listened to a
mite more Black Sabbath, he would have put out a record similar to
Adversarial.
When it comes to personal preference, I absolutely adore southern
rock and metal – Maylene & the Sons of Disaster, Eyehategod,
you name it, I like it. And for Black Pyramid to suddenly
feature southern rock is a dream come true for me, because all stoner
metal sounds better if you add in plenty of pentatonic licks.
Black
Pyramid have always been good at getting you to bang your head, and
the catchiness and gnarly hooks of previous outings, along with all
the psychedelic fun, hasn't gone anywhere, and what's better is that
with the healthy doom influence that's slowed down the band, you can
savour each and every ingenious addition. This is a record that
pretty much literally goes back and forth between old and new ideas –
'Onyx and Obsidian', 'Issus', and 'Swing the Scimitar' are epic
battle hymns, while the remaining two songs take more cues from
stoner doom than epic, powerful music.
Adversarial
is
a profoundly satisfying
listen
– it's exciting, fun, and infectious, bundled into a convenient
package for your pleasure, but it is
a
step away from what made albums like II
and
Stormbringer so
memorable. Namely, the upbeat tempo and the peppy, “we're at war”
type lyricisms, and while the introduction 'Swing the Scimitar'
maintains that aura of grandiose battle, the rest of the record is
more subdued and drawn out. That's not a bad thing by any stretch of
the imagination, but it does mean that if you're looking for more
intense, mighty music, Adversarial
might
be a disappointment.
Notable
Tracks: 'Onyx and Obsidian', 'Aphelion', 'Issus'.
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