EP Review: The Bridesmaid – Grayson

Someone wiser than me once said “You can’t judge a book by its cover”. Ignoring such wise council, I find myself pre-judging the latest disc to land on my disc. Robert Høyem, who has also created art for bands like Sahg, Heksed and Kampfar, has conjured a really beautiful cover to accompany this EP from London-based instrumentalists The Bridesmaid. Picturing a religious figure lost deep in prayer it glows with an eerie presence. Mimicking the effect of woodcut art, his subject matter is all very suggestive of something spiritually ominous, possibly with black metal overtones lurking within and, if not that, then certainly music with an extreme, penetrative construct. The reality is a propulsive sound that, at times, dips its toes into emotionally soothing waters.

The track-titles suggest connections to the names of explorers of continents, rivers and even outer space. The tracks, however, struggle to marry up to my hypothetical concept (try the We Lost The Sea’s deeply-moving “A Gallant Gentleman” if you like the idea and require closure) so I realise I must stop. Diving back into Grayson then with an open mind then… Opener “Oates” crackles into life and slowly builds drawing on warm glossy tones, much like those that colour Skyharbor’s latest single “Evolution”, before releasing into “Ives” which heads deeper into the darker, choppier waters of other instrumental post-rockers like Russian Circles and Pelican. Here the yawning, melancholic backdrop stands in contrast to the driven groove which never quite allows it to get away or develop organically.

Happily, “Aldrin” does offer some evolving panic and heavy action before releasing into a sweet, repeating series of keyed strokes. Only here does it feel like any instrumental lead role is being taken to replace the absence of vocal colouring. The pattern of riffs visit several touch points and eloquently guide the listener along through a strong sequence of shoegaze and post-metal. “Ballack” follows suit in grinding out a darker path without ever quite finding its voice. And therein lies the problem with Grayson as a whole. It doesn’t engage or challenge the listener beyond those initial bursts.

Of course, I understand now why I felt a compulsion to create meaning within. Unguided, experiencing this EP felt like walking into a stranger’s room full of strange objects and even now, after the tenth play, it feels like a record without a mooring. It’s the lack of a lead element that has cast it adrift. Perhaps their future works will feature enough running time to invite true introspection and perhaps then a connection to the contents will follow more naturally.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/07/the-bridesmaid-grayson-sr/

Album Review: Inventions – Inventions

Sleep’s Jerusalem, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, Jean Michel Jarre’s Oxygene and, to a lesser extent, Pink Floyd‘s Dark Side Of The Moon and Ozric Tentacles’ Jurassic Shift. These are all albums whose tracks remain emotionally welded together, no matter how many attempts are made to pull them asunder. Those who harbour a strong passion for long-players of this ilk will glory in the birth of Inventions whose debut demands instantaneous full exposure.

Having previously stuck rigidly to their own bodies of work, there was always the fear that neither Explosions In The Sky‘s Mark T. Smith or Matthew Cooper, the sole member of Eluvium, sending audio tapes across the heart of the U.S., would bring a cohesive series of fresh sounds to the table and, to some extent, their music does touch base with their past bands. However, there can be no doubt that as a united force they have also revelled in the freedom this new project has granted them. Consequently, they have created an instrumental album of the most beautiful, minimalist, ambient rock music that resonates at a completely different frequency from all that has gone before.

Yawning into life, the aptly-titled “Echo Tropism” tugs gently at your sleeve; its soft flow pulling you into a sculptured world where joyous emotion soaks into the flora and resounds along currents that circulate around your still form. Drifting through the tracks, breathy vocalisations begin to create harmonics that rise through the richly-layered subsonics. The spartan, often crunching, percussive elements keep the whole locked into a central spine so that as the synthetic patterns stretch, in the main, they remain integrated and vital to the whole.

Softly throbbing industrial machinations thread their way through tracks like “Entity” and “Psychic Automation”, the former pitching a subversively robotic burble into a series of pressure-releasing industrial pistons that curse as they snort and hiss their disapproval. The one track that wincingly tries to break rank is the coiled snake and bustling city soundscape of “Sun Locations / Sun Coda” which, curiously, assimilates elements of trance music. Happily, the ambient post-rock of “Peacable Child” reasserts the flow by slotting a pitter-patter arpeggio beneath a warping synth to create rotational drag. The remarkable effect is not unlike rhythmically cupping and uncupping your ears. For an extra-sensory experience try closing your eyes - I was alarmed to discover a tank of slowly pulsing, bioluminescent jellyfish staring back at me.

Constantly shifting, there is an astonishing organic flow to the album and to force unwieldy terms like electronica or shoegaze upon this collection would seem crass. It does touch base with the genres at several points during its life-cycle, yet the focus remains rooted to the emotional impact it has. Flooded with the same warm tones that emerged from ISIS / Deftones collaborative project Palms’ debut and imbued with similar instrumental pressure points to those of The Ocean’s Pelagial and Uneven Structure’s Februus, this pulsating album positively glows. Make time for this single-sitting long-player and you will be rewarded.

Also online @ The Line Of Best Fit = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/reviews/albums/inventions-inventions-149597

EP Review: Darkentries - The Make Believe

If you've been paying attention to modern metal of late, you will have noticed that most bands not besotted with retro, are pushing their music forwards with varied attempts at blurring the lines between genres. Some, of course, are taking the concept to the extreme by fusing those lines into a vast wall of sound. South Carolina's Darkentries, contentedly sat on Kylesa's record label, are one of the latter and have drawn influence from such quarters as sludge, hardcore, doom and post-metal to create a blackened, nihilistic cacophony.

What stands out the most here is the production. Recorded with Kris Hilbert at the curiously-titled Legitimate Business Studio, with the mastering taking place over at Audiosiege, the overall impression is of a vital, raw mix loaded with enough echo to bring it back from the brink. Carefully layered within, the powerful, mud-flinging guitars take pride of place at the forefront, the drums sit in the middle distance, and the vocal is left to rant and rave from somewhere out back. It's an odd experience to discover that the gapping between the levels mean you can actually pick out the points where Hampton Dodd's vocals start phasing. Of course, it is exactly because the band don't utilise every inch of space that, inside the sections where instrument drop-outs occur, it all begins to feel slightly removed from the present. Whilst a shame that slight fault does leave them much room for experimentation - hopefully more so when they finally get round to issuing that full-length.

Digging down into the tracks, 'TV Fuzz' shifts from a gentile guitar introduction into pounding black doom. With the vocal lurching between one that pitches mournful shoegaze and another that seems ensconced in inflicting post-hardcore chaos, the effect is intense and shattering. Though 'Honey Eater' and the stunning 'Feedback Funeral' stay on the same path, they muscle up every element. The vocal sinks deeper to create a more resonant, more forbidding atmosphere and finds a red-raw animosity when it gets its 'core on. Even the sludge-packing guitars wind it all down until the buzzing begins to vibrate at the back of your brain. What stands out, is that somewhere amongst all the to-ing and fro-ing, you'll hear strong hints at the kind of ambient, miserabilist post-hardcore peddled by bands like The Elijah or Devil Sold His Soul.

Upping their game, 'I'm Tired Of Being Awake' finds joy in warping the attack; picking up the desert and blowing it back in our faces. In these mere three minutes they find room to echo the emotional, death-addled contortions of Ihsahn and even time to tap out some Mastodon-esque string progressions. '1200-S' is their chthonic monster, emerging from its abyss to rip out some suitably alien roars and illicit agonising screams form its prey. There are also vast open power chords, gutsy basslines and heart-pumping chugs to get on board with. Lyrically, you'll not find much to sink your teeth into with this EP, save perhaps for 'Feedback Funeral' and that repeating disembodied scream of "just bloody kill me" or in the wild-eyed chant of "paradise, paradise" awaiting in '1200-S'.

Understandably short, impossibly indulgent, strangely exhilarating. In a sense, this kind of carefully-constructed lunacy is exactly what we, as disciples of extreme metal, crave. It's music that breaks barriers, retaining an essence of ancient majesty but remaining unafraid to let things get a little ugly and a little twisted. Easy listening this is not, but then this is, in effect, Darkentries' crack at sonic catharsis. Their ball, their rules. The Make Believe represents their own honest attempt to define what modern heavy metal means to them. It will be very interesting to see what kind of unholy noises they can conjure up in the future.

Also online @ Scratch The Surface = http://www.scratchthesurface-webzine.com/2014/03/darkentries-make-believe-review.html

Album Review: Across Tundras/Lark’s Tongue – Split LP

All too often, partnerships on split records can often conflict creating as much disharmony as complementary noises. That’s not always a bad thing, as the range of contradicting, experimental connections inside can often portray an intriguing and more complete whole. In this instance, however, there is plenty of concord and, consequently, plenty of opportunity for further exploration. Combined, these two have even managed to play inside the pentagonal borders of what we, the press, might refer to as grunge, shoegaze, drone, post-metal and stoner.

This blissed-out middle-ground is first marked out by the wonderfully-titled Across Tundras, a trio hailing from Tennessee who Cavity Records have described as both “vintage psychedelia” and “panoramic country crush”. The track “Low Haunts”, propped up by an anarchic four-and-a-half minute warbling wash of pedal effects (rather like an orchestra clearing its throat) steps up with a lush, organic kind of Americana that warms the very cockles of your heart. If The Rolling Stones ate mushrooms and space-cake instead of snorting all that coke and speed, they’d have sounded pretty much like this. Hell they even say it themselves. Interesting, then, that the line “Like a rolling stone” pops up in “Crux To Bea” which throws more chugging groove into the mix enabling them to drift into grittier corners. Never static, they eventually tumble into an effusive style of stripped-back, heavy-lidded blues that echo artists like Dan Auberbach and Dead Confederate.

Completing the morphing progression, Illinois-dwelling Lark’s Tongue (their moniker clearly paying homage to King Crimson) head deeper into the cosmos to haul down a droning wall-of-sound backdrop à la Hawkind into which they weave a tapestry of lush melodies à la Slowdive. Haul on the volume for the book-ending chorus of “Follow Your Night” to fully appreciate the obliterating crush and then drop out for complete immersion as the LP’s highlight, “Aluminium”, kicks in. The vocal harmonies locked within are stunningly beautiful and meld serenely into the thunderous riffage that rains down upon the listener.

As a split four-tracker this may, on the face of it, seem like a frivolous purchase, but at 33 minutes it offers pretty good value for money. Honestly, you’d be hard-pressed to find another split as thematically-explorative, emotionally dense and gloriously satisfying as this one.

Now streaming @ Bandcamp = http://cavityrecords.bandcamp.com/album/across-tundras-larks-tongue-split

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/04/across-tundraslarks-tongue-split-lp-cavity-records/