okay let's *devin townsend voice* hey boy
y'all get these huge uncut walls of text that were basically the only way I could untangle my complex opinions on both of these, but here it is.
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This album. On first listen I was really not into this one. And that didn't change, ever. I definitely get the intention. And I don't think that it really fails immediately. Okay, well actually. I do not like this core style of vocals at all, it's genuinely one of the most generic harsh vocal performances I've ever heard and has absolutely no texture or aggression to it, it's just... a noise that exists. But yeah, the first few tracks, at least have some okay riffing even if I'm not super into them. Glutton was the one you wanted me to like and, it's got its moments, the bassline drives a lot of this song nicely and the riffs are solid. I'm not like, in love with it but it's a pretty competent tune. And it works because it's a lot less riff-driven, with lower-pitch guitar melodies more than riffs a lot of the time, a bit of room to breathe in the middle. If you're going to do this style of post-metal, that's basically the way to do it. And then the song right after immediately proves how not to do it. I feel like what this band lacks is a good sense of the "middle ground" of metal. They do the heavier stuff quite a lot. And they do break things up with the very occasional quieter moment. But there's never those in-between phases where the song is just left to simmer for a while, which means there's no chance for anything to really build up, it's just an on-again off-again between walls of heavy riffs with occasionally stopping for a breather only to go right back again. And the styles of riffs they play here just do not interest me, a lot of the time. Like you have this crushing sludgy riff in Butcher Birds. It's slower-paced, sure, and it's heavy. But I just don't -feel- it. There's another album I've been really digging, On Strange Loops by Mithras, and I want to point to one song in particular, Into the Godmind, which ends with this just COMICALLY heavy riff, heavier than anything on this album. But it's the long payoff of practically an album's worth of buildup to get to that one moment and it just CRUSHES, the guitar tone is there, it's literally as downtuned as they could reasonably get, it's just a basic rhythm you can FEEL. In the rare moment where I like something punishingly heavy and it needs to right conditions to work; if you're just doing it constantly without any real variation between the riffs it both diminishes the heaviness in the moment and makes it lack memorability overall. And man, this album really feels lacking in memorability. I've gone through this four times and I genuinely don't remember a single moment of this besides that bass groove in the middle of Glutton, and I only really remember it because I just heard it. The way the album is structured also does it no favors; four of the 5 longest songs on the album are all in the last five tracks and the song lengths steer longer towards the end, at the point where a listener is more likely to be exhausted, which makes those last few tracks reeeeally drag on more than they would if the album's structure was a bit more balanced. Like, I absolutely hate Locust Christ but if you put it in towards the end of the album in the middle of the 5 minute tunes it'd at least function as a good change of pace. Okay, and I wanna point out this because it's bugging me again. A Tiger Moths Shadow is like the pinnacle of what I mentioned about having no middle ground. It starts out with this slow buildup that could organically evolve into something but instead they just slam right into the heavy riff instead. I think this song has some of the more interesting riffs on the album at the very least, it's the other track I'd call particularly a standout; the riffs here aren't as sludgy and have a bit of melody to them, I can kind of dig them. The vocals kind of ruin it a bit but I can at least somewhat get into this one, save for the aborted buildup that starts the album. I suspect my biggest disconnect with this album is that I like my music colorful - even if you're doing something heavy, I expect it to be for a reason & I expect more than just plodding riffs. The Hirsch Effekt pull off extreme heaviness well because the way they do it is so far from what most bands' first instinct is - rather than huge riffs they love to build these walls of sound based on high-pitched, dissonant chords and guitar melodies. Ira's opening riff goes hard as hell and it's about two octaves above a lot of the riffs on this album. And the post-metal I do like that loves this kind of sludgy riffing, it's done for atmosphere, it's not so upbeat and there's still often gradual buildup. Stenian which you specifically brought up, it has that moment of simmer between the clean intro (which already builds up some on its own) and when that massive riff kicks in. And that riff has power, groove, and atmosphere, and it's sticky as hell (so much so that they somewhat reprise it on Cognitive Dissonance to achieve a similar effect). I also just find myself chuckling at the "it's just more of the same" line in Bestial Beginnings every time, lol. Yeah, you're telling me. It's probably the one track that does well to achieve some semblance of post-metal atmosphere in a meaningful way though. I think if you took some of these songs in isolation they'd fare better than they do in the form of a full album, because I'm not going to deny that, yes, there are some okay songs here. But they don't do enough to distinguish themselves and there's not enough unique ideas between them to sustain even an album of this length and the entire album suffers for it, it took me until my fourth listen to even be able to distinguish between a few of these tracks, and there's still some tracks here that I just... don't feel at all, and there's nothing that comes even remotely close to the average The Ocean or Intronaut tune. I dunno. I have complicated thoughts here, as the meandering wall of text probably suggests, but it's really your fault for sending me an album I have to give 100% of my attention to to even be able to find some positive traits at all. And even then, I think I'd rather just wait for that upcoming The Ocean album in a few months rather than give this another spin.
So yeah, this is Train of Naught with
Lo! – Vestigial.
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Honestly the first song on this one is pretty fine. It’s got okay riffs, it has that melodic break in the middle which, while nothing special, at least serves as a nice break from the intensity around it. And it’s got a bit of flavor with the marching rhythm bit towards the end, I do genuinely like that too. Stylistically as I’ve said I’m not super into it – thrash metal is just a hard no for me, never really cared for it, and Slayer in particular is one of the worst metal bands to ever get popular in my opinion. But I also am generally not so much for the more straightforward side of black metal, it can work in small doses like on Skepsis Pt. II, but I prefer the atmospheres. This opener still at least does the black metal style in a way I’m mostly on board with. Things start falling apart reeeally quickly after that though. The main riff of the second track doesn’t do much for me at all & I can’t say much for the rest of the song either, it’s quick and not obnoxious but I don’t dig it either. The production on this album… seems to be taking more from black metal than thrash metal but the texture on the guitars, while certainly lo-fi enough, still feels too crisp, the tremolo-picked riffs don’t disappear into a blur of noise the way a lot of black metal tends to, rather they just feel jagged and stiff. I also don’t care for the palm muted riff starting off Amy, it’s kind of incredibly goofy the way it sounds? The groovier middle bit it surrounds is… again, okay, but it never sucks me in & I really think the tone is part of it. It’s not heavy enough to be pummeling but not clean enough to be melodically satisfying. Really if I were to point to one specific thing… I think it’s just the tempo. I don’t actually listen to a ton of fast-paced metal and albums that do have fast-paced stuff it’s usually not a nonstop thing. Where as this album is just… relentless. It gets tiring more quickly than other albums just because of how upbeat a lot of it is and really that’s my issue with thrash metal in general, the emphasis on speed just wears me out and simultaneously makes everything sound really similar. And I’d like to appreciate the progressive touches on Of the Dead and Those of the Void but I guess it doesn’t work as well when there are still good chunks of those songs that just miss the mark for me. The former does get this solid riff going towards the middle and the weird synth thing going on at the same time makes for a pretty great buildup, there is absolutely something there and it’s what frustrates me most, that the album absolutely does have its moments of brilliance but they’re far and few between and mired in samey thrash-y riffs that I don’t care for. If they’d built more of the album around that kind of sound and toned down the rest I think it could’ve led to a much more balanced album, I guess is what I’m trying to say. You also called out the technical aspect of the album and I want to comment on that as well; yes, I did list technicality as one of my five tenants of what makes an album good to me, but it’s probably the least important of the five, and it’s more like… the seasoning that takes a good album to being a great one, it’s more in the relisten value of albums I already enjoy at their core, something to pick apart and keep me invested even after I’m familiar with the more straightforward moments of the album. Yes, I absolutely do enjoy technical metal but not if it doesn’t interest me sonically to begin with. Also the main riff in In the Name etc. I could swear I just heard the same riff earlier in the album but I don’t actually think that’s the case? Which just really suggests to me that man, a lot of these riffs sound way too similar. The solo on this song is okay though. Those of the Void starts off pretty strong with some haunting atmosphere and a great black metal-esque buildup section but the moment the vocals come in my interest drops significantly. I guess I should talk about the vocals. They’re “eehh”. They detract maybe a little but stylistically I prefer them to Lo!’s at the very least. Then there’s another of those prog touches I mentioned with the chill piano interlude and a bit of acoustic guitar accompaniment. Some strings. It’s a nice, serene moment that the album really, really is starved for and is one of the most memorable moments of the entire thing just by default. But the song doesn’t linger on it too long and then it’s right back to the parts I’m not so keen on… the solo isn’t awful but it’s a bit generic thrash-shreddy. See, that’s the thing, this album is at its best when it strays as far away as possible from its core sound. That almost undermines the comment I made earlier about how at least these two albums both knew what they wanted to be, because this one isn’t as certain and every time it doubts itself it actually gets way, way better for it. That might just be the most frustrating thing of all. Sceptre Command also hits on something decent for a bit in the middle of the song, though it again feels a bit disconnected from the rest of the song… see the issue? I don’t really have anything else left to say about this one except that it also has the handicap of being about ten minutes longer than its competitor here, which… yeah, that makes it feel like it drags on even more. While I think the best parts of this are better than the best parts of the other album, it comes at the cost of them being very infrequent and spread out across a longer time period. And stylistically this one was never going to work for me, just, at all.
And this is Puppies_On_Acid with
Absu – Absu.
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I’ll admit that I did have a hard time picking one of these two as my least favorite, but with relistens one of these at least trended up a little from my initial impressions while the other just stayed at a low point and never recovered. And from the tone of the write-ups above, I think it’s pretty clear now to me which of these I prefer. I do feel I was maybe a little harsh on one of these as it’s really not that aggressively bad now that I’ve had this really dedicated listen to try and pick it apart – absolutely still bottom two of the round for me, but there’s at least… a spark of something there. Meanwhile, I was just as hard as I needed to be towards the other and my opinion hasn’t softened at all, and while it’s a shame to have to cut either of you, since I know you’re both capable of sending me some really great stuff, one of you has to go, and it’s gonna have to be Absu. Sorry, puppies, but feel free to send me some other stuff to check out regardless ‘cause I know you have some of it, just, this one did not work for me at all.
1. OWEL – OWEL
2. Ultar – Kadath
3. Tides of Man – Dreamhouse
4. Mike Oldfield – Ommadawn
5. Iris Divine – Karma Sown
6. smallman – Envision
7. Lo! – Vestigial
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8. Absu – Absu
Everyone else can go ahead and send me albums, I'll probably start listening Wednesday or Thursday depending on how I feel, I actually already have TAC's since he seems to be one of the first to send every round