High on Fire — Cometh the Storm Review

This site suffers from a High on Fire appreciation deficit. Staffers from the prog-and-scones salon brush them away like so much dandruff from the shoulder of their tweed blazers. The caveman contingent, meanwhile, sends no love to this sludge institution. We’ve only reviewed them one time!¹ The oversight heaps discredit on snobs and slobs alike. Matt Pike’s post-Sleep trio has been a reliable font of Very Good-ness for decades now, gracing mix tapes and then playlists with the band’s signature fusion of stoner fantasy tropes and Lemmy-esque swagger. The quality ticks up (borderline classics like Surrounded by Thieves, Death is This Communion, and De Vermis Mysteriis) and down (Snakes for the Divine and 2018’s Electric Messiah, cursed with the albatross of a Grammy for Best Metal Performance) along the way, but the act remains consistent. There is no such thing as a bad High on Fire album. With the release of their ninth slab Cometh the Storm, I, Ferox, pounced on the opportunity to acknowledge these facts and correct the record. Cometh the Storm just needs to deliver the groceries one more time so I can cram it in the face of my fellow staffers.

There is nothing like the opener of a High on Fire record! From “Fury Whip” to “Snakes for the Divine” to “Serums of Liao” to “The Black Plot,” these Oakland lifers never fail to land the first punch. They’re so excellent coming off the starting blocks that I curate a Spotify playlist called “Fuck Yeah First Song on Every High on Fire Album.”² So Cometh the Storm kickoff “Lambsbread” must be killer, right? Let’s fucking go!

… “Lambsbread,” it turns out, is just okay. Pretty good, maybe? It’s vicious and energetic. The band debuts some new MENA-inflected chord progressions and lead lines midway through, but what could have been a creative shot in the arm fails to convince. The new elements can’t quite mesh with High on Fire’s established sound; they seem only to say “look, I learned these scales!” The song never feels fully fleshed out–but surely High on Fire’s instincts for quality will kick in soon… ?

Unfortunately, “Lambsbread” is a harbinger of sustained ill tidings. The album’s plenty heavy, with Kurt Ballou returning to produce and Coady Willis from Melvins stepping in to replace the mighty Des Kensel on drums. The rejiggered trio hasn’t lost their aggression, but the Riff Gods seem to have forsaken axeman and living embodiment of all things metal, Matt Pike. That sounds borderline sacrilegious, but big patches of Cometh the Storm substitute energy for dynamic songwriting. The album blazes past without delivering many moments that stick. Even standout tracks like “Burning Down” and “Cometh the Storm,” while fun enough, are still well off HoF’s standard. “Karanik Yol” goes the way of all instrumental interludes, with bassist Jeff Matz’s turn on the Turkish saz unable to mask the track’s inessential core.

“Aimless” is the last word to describe a typical High on Fire outing, but it applies to too much of Cometh the Storm. On the best tracks in the band’s vast catalog, the seismic rhythm section builds a foundation for Matt Pike’s guitar heroics. The songs go places, pummeling through changes without leaning too heavily on one riff or chord progression. Even Snakes for the Divine’s title track has the good sense to withhold its all-time classic riff to build anticipation for the next time it drops. That variety is often missing here. Tracks like “Sol’s Golden Curse” and closer “Darker Fleece” hook into one idea and then jam on it at length. The band’s attitude never flags, it’s just not enough to carry them through an hour of music.

I came here to praise High on Fire, not to bury them. Events intervened, but even the band’s first dalliance with AMG‘s Law of Diminishing Recordings is only going to sink so far. Pike, Matz, and now Willis are too gifted and too certain of their mission to drop an outright dud. High on Fire has pounded a lot of joy into me over the years, so it gives me no pleasure to declare them off their peak. But with Cometh the Storm following the less-than-stellar Electric Messiah, the venerable trio’s output is properly trending downward.

Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: Not Applicable | Format Reviewed: Stream
Label: MNRK Heavy
Websites: highonfire.bandcamp.com |instagram.com/highonfireband
Releases Worldwide: April 19, 2024