The last record from the curiously-named Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree, 2019’s Grandmother, did not grace these pages but for some reason, I was aware of it and it made enough of an impression on me that I was interested to review its successor, Aion. Buzzing around since 2014, Bees released their debut, Medicine, in 2017. A whimsy, faintly progressive doom record with a few hints of stoner around the fringes, it was solid. Grandmother was an altogether more interesting affair. A tightly-written slab of doom that upped the progressive quota by dialing in some psychedelia, as well as a rumbling darker edge, it showed a lot of promise, particularly on 10-minute closer “Dionysus.” Will this quartet from Stuttgart, Germany maintain that direction of travel on their third record?
Let’s not beat about the Vein Tree here, the short answer is no. The long answer is as follows. It’s hard for me to convey in words just how boring I found the majority of Aion, which also seems to go on for an eon. Medicine and Grandmother were both 45 minutes and each had a sense of energy and vitality to them. Aion is 79 minutes long. That’s of lot of minutes and it’s startling just how little happens during the majority of them. The whole record feels like Bees are building toward something, like they’re gathering energy (by sucking it out of me!) ready for … well, I don’t know what because it never happens. Aion sounds like Lateralus-era Tool with all the things that made Tool interesting stripped out.
It’s not that Bees do anything bad. They are all competent musicians and can handle their instruments well, albeit that I find the vocals (credited to guitarist Simon Weinrich and drummer Marc Dreher) fairly lackluster, with their semi-clean, half-spoken echoing quality. Rarely have I encountered an album even approaching this length, however, that I have so little to say about. Aion is replete with vaguely psychedelic blues melodies that die long, drawn-out deaths drowning in their own reverb. Dreher’s drums, probably the highlight in terms of interest, venture into polyrhythmic territory in places (of which “Threatening” is probably the best example, as well as on closer “Grey Wels”). That said, percussion is often dispensed with entirely, including the final quarter of the title track, the last third of the next track (“Divergence”), the entirety of pointless back-to-back interludes of “Consonance” and “Courtyard” and so on. At their most energetic and, consequently most interesting, on “Scouring the Land,” Bees hint at what they are capable of. Lush bluesy guitar melodies are layered atop each other, with restrained but solid work on bass from Christopher Popowitsch, all building toward a psychedelic crescendo with an almost crust punk edge to it. Bliss. And for once, they don’t fade out the track in a percussion-free drone, seeing the thing to its natural conclusion instead.
There is little to complain about in terms of the production on Aion. Everything sounds decent, with Dreher’s drums particularly clear in the mix, and a nice tone on the guitars. I don’t like the overly effects-laden style of the vocals, which I think is supposed to lend the whole a slightly ethereal air (see closer “Grey Wels,” in particular) but this is a choice, rather than a misstep, and may appeal to some more than me. The biggest issue here is the songwriting. There just isn’t enough material here—like, not even vaguely enough—to justify Aion’s length. There is, I think, a reasonable 35- or maybe 40-minute record buried in here, although of less interesting fare than Grandmother but 79 minutes? No. The extended percussion-free passages meander unnecessarily, while the inclusion of two interludes on an album already comprising a lot of … ambient space is confusing.
I went into Aion without any real expectations as to what I would get from Bees, as there was a fair progression between Medicine and Grandmother but I did expect to be interested, and perhaps even captivated, if they could deliver on the promise shown in 2019. They did not and I am angry with Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree because they have forced me to do something I dislike intensely: giving a word “rating” (because it is not a rating!) but it is the only thing that adequately captures how I feel about Aion.
Rating: 2.0/5.0 Disappointing
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Magnetic Eye Records
Websites: beesmadehoneyintheveintree.bandcamp.com | beesmadehoneyintheveintree.com | facebook.com/beesmadehoneyintheveintree
Releases Worldwide: August 18th, 2023
