“I have my own boxes to check as I look for the next Cherd friendly album, so when patterns emerge, I take note. Recent positive experiences with doomy, noise tinged post-metal from the United Kingdom packaged in black and white cover art, namely Sūrya and Bismuth, led me to take a chance on Torpor’s Rhetoric of the Image. Will the sophomore effort from this three-piece keep the hitting streak alive?” Post-gambling.
“It was cold. We chased the sun downhill and West, out of the snowy peaks of the Sierras and across their weeping faces. It gleamed through the murmured rain on the windshield, beat the slick cliff sides and shattered on waterfalls loosed from the ice above. The only sound in the car, save the pelting rain, was Hope Drone’s Cloak of Ash. No other music could accompany the pounding, screaming beauty of the land. No other beat could choreograph the ferns below and firs above. It was art in conversation with the snowbanks and in time with the rushing streams.” Primal beauty.
“In a fit of puzzling generosity, relative n00b TheKenWord foisted this album upon me for review purposes. I hadn’t heard of Black Vulpine, but the young whippersnapper made Veil Nebula sound so enticing that I couldn’t say no. Although it did make me wonder, if this German quartet (almost like a stoner/doom version of Abba, with two men and two women in the band) was so great, why was he bailing on the review? Well, far be it from me to disappoint my well-intentioned coworker, so here we are, a few weeks into it, compiling thoughts on a massive (in more than one way) helping of Teutonic stoner doom.” Paws and pawns.
“In the past couple of decades, metal has generated extremity along both rhythmic and harmonic paths, but the two have been largely insulated from another. Meshuggah and The Dillinger Escape Plan meticulously machined immensely complex rhythms, while Deathspell Omega and Ulcerate twisted strings to wring out sickening chords and chilling melodies. And while accusing Meshuggah or Dillinger of harmonic simplicity would be as absurd as dismissing Ulcerate or Deathspell’s considerable rhythmic weight, the approaches of the two schools are rarely invoked at once. That’s where Noise Trail Immersion come in.” New maths.
“Music is a visual experience for me, so much so that when I see something instrumental smoldering in the Angry Metal Heap ov Dreams, I grow curious rather than cautious. Such was the case with Cataya’s Firn, and I met its four-track challenge with all kinds of optimism: I ain’t afraid of no vox.” Less talk, more mood.
