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Zero Hour – Dark Deceiver

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Let’s just get right to the point. Dark Deceiver by Zero Hour is some crazy stuff.

And for some reason, in 2008, I was really, really in the mood for crazy. I was familiar with some of the band’s previous work. Their opus Specs of Pictures Burnt Beyond was an album I had tried to enjoy given the praise it had received in the progressive online media. Yet true enjoyment of that album had eluded me for a couple of years (though it now boasts two of my all-time favorite songs). Something about Specs just left me feeling a little cold.

Enter Dark Deceiver, the fifth and final album from Zero Hour. Here was an album that was darker, heavier, faster, and really more all over the place than the band’s previous work. Zero Hour played a style of technically challenging progressive metal. Powerful vocals, thundering and stunning bass work, with drumming to match, and some really great fretwork.

Dark Deceiver took all of that and turned it up to 11. The bass playing here is just insane, and the drumming keeps up. Chris Salinas has a powerful voice that is a bit of a mix of Geoff Tate (he’s a douche these days, but man that guy had an amazing voice), Warrel Dane (RIP), and even some glimpses of Ray Alder, while always still sounding like his own singer. He demonstrates a true power here, with a strong range, and the ability to punch through the technical music.

And the songs here are just top notch. They take some time to get into, honestly. Part of this is the technical nature. The time signatures vary dramatically, and some of the songs never really get into a groove. Often that will put me off, but here it works. There are moments of really beautiful and emotional music to be found amidst the aggression and technical playing, as well as some just punishingly heavy riffs.

For me though, once I started to really get into these songs, particularly some of the shorter tracks, everything else started to click into place for me. I really couldn’t stop listening to Dark Deciever, and still find myself drawn to it today. Next thing I knew, this was all I was listening to, and suddenly the band’s previous work opened up to me and I was hooked. I fell in love with their style of aggressive, progressive metal.

Sadly, Zero Hour is no longer with us, though the Tipton brothers continue to release great music (check out the two albums from Cynthesis for some more amazing, powerful, but much less technical prog). Gone though, these guys are not forgotten and I strongly recommend checking out their albums. And Dark Deceiver is a great place to jump in.

Isole – Dystopia

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There is just something about doom metal that gets me. It gets so many things right, it pulls me in and keeps me wanting more and more. The first half of 2019 saw a relative dearth of great doom metal, and I kept waiting for my fix.

When I think of excellent doom metal, I am looking for heavy, heavy riffs, that still remain delightfully melodic. Vocals that are soaring, emotive, and powerful are a key. I want memorable choruses that you want to sing along with. And, of course, under it all should be a palpable melancholy, a sense of loss, sadness, of even despair. Come on, it’s called doom metal for a reason. This isn’t happy music.

The catharsis in a solid doom song is a wonderful thing. It can be incredibly therapeutic, and I find it even soothing at times.

Enter Isole, with their latest album Dystopia. I wasn’t familiar with the band prior to this August release. But Dystopia immediately made me a fan. I found everything I was hoping for.

The riffs are massive. They are powerful. They are heavy. Yet they still sing to you. They tell a story. They aren’t heavy just to be heavy. They propel the music and the emotion directly into that instinctive lizard brain. The guitars emote in a mournfully beautiful manner. Take personal favorite “You Went Away”. It starts with an ominous church bell and a grinding, low, brutal riff. Layered on top of this, though, is a mournful clean mini-solo. Nary a word has been sung, but this combination has already set up an epic feeling tale of sadness and loss.

Let’s not forget the vocals. Throughout the album, they shine through the music. Acting both as a focus of light, and an additional source of sadness and loss, they sweep along with the music, bringing the listener with. Scaling back at times, growing, and exploding at others, they provide the dynamics necessary to sweep the listener along in the flow of the music. There are even sparse and tasteful death growls. These are all the more effective due to their restraint. They masterfully convey darker emotions at just the right time.

Dystopia is a tight seven songs. Not a moment feels wasted or superfluous. This further enhances the impact of each and every song. I find myself coming back again and again.

What I love the most about music is it’s ability to be appreciate for a plethora of reasons. Some music I love because of the technical ability required to produce it. Other, because of its ability to excite and motivate me. The music I love the most is that which makes me feel.

Dystopia makes me feel. It communicates so many emotions and does so with so much skill and power. The music is as emotional as the vocals. The lyrics bring you along as well. This is doom at its finest, and exemplifies why doom is one of my very favorites.

Fates Warning – The Spectre Within

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The New Wave of British Heavy Metal was in full swing in the early 80s. Thanks to bands such as Iron Maiden and Judas Priest (amongst others), heavy metal was taking hold, becoming a pretty big deal, and many bands were following in the footsteps of those greats.

One of those bands was Fates Warning, from Connecticut. Their first album, Night on Brocken dropped in 1984, with a distinct sense of Iron Maiden worship.

However, a closer listen revealed some tendencies to more progressive music. Shades of bands such as Rush were creeping into the NWOBHM sound that Fates was building their sound on. Enter their second album in 1985, The Spectre Within, and I don’t think it would be unfair to say that progressive metal was born.

Taking the metal sound of Night on Brocken and adding different time signatures, allowing the music to really be more dynamic and variable, and in retrospect, ground was being broken. Fates Warning is anchored by the guitar playing of Jim Matheos, and on The Spectre Within we see him upping his game considerably. Songs like “Orphan Gypsy” still are built on that fast, metal riffing. But it is also willing to slow things down, add some variation with the choruses. “Pirates of the Underground” is one of my favorites. Starting with a rapid gallop, it slows things down when the first verse hits, only to end by speeding up again, with one of my favorite endings in metal.

And that is a theme really seen on The Spectre Within. Few, if any, of the songs are predictable, or go where you initially expect. Yet what also makes this album so strong is how none of these transitions feel abrupt or out of place. There is a definite flow to the album, despite the changing time signatures and tempos throughout.

Songs like “The Apparition” are legitimate prog masterpieces. Final track, “Epitaph” is 12 minutes of excellence that really shows where the band would go on subsequent tracks like “Exodus” and “The Ivory Gate of Dreams”.

It is impossible to talk about the first three Fates Warning albums without spending some time on the vocals of John Arch.

Let me start by saying that, it took me a bit to really get into his voice. Given that Ray Alder was my introduction to Fates Warning, John Arch was something completely different. I’ve read that Tony Iommi said that Ozzy sang with the melody, but Dio sang across the melody. That is a good way to describe John Arch as well. His vocal melodies are some of the most interesting in metal. He has a high tenor, and isn’t afraid to use it. But what I love the most is just how dynamic his vocal lines are. This man can sing, and amazingly still can today. Because his vocal melodies are much more unique and dynamic than usual for this type of music, it takes a bit for them to click. But once they do, I’ll fight anyone who has bad things to say about John Arch. It’s that simple.

The Spectre Within is an essential album, as it really is the birth of prog metal. It holds up excellently today and is a dynamic, vibrant musical expression of a band that continues to shape progressive music to this day.

Schammasch – Hearts of No Light

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I appreciate ambition.

I really do. Ambition will take you a long way, as far as I am concerned. Even if that ambition doesn’t pay off, I appreciate when someone puts it out there and goes for it.

Case in point, Schammasch and their 2016 release Triangle. Talk about ambition. Triangle is essentially 3 albums in one, with a different take on music on each of the three albums. I was instantly intrigued and fascinated by the ambition. And while it does make the album a tad on the long side, it is still a staggering work of art and well worth the exploration.

Triangle put Schammasch on my radar. And 2019 sees them releasing Hearts of No Light, and this record has Schammasch on the short list of most interesting and fascinating bands releasing music currently.

This is black metal at its heart. There are harsh vocals, though not in the usual high, harsh register classic for black metal, but certainly not the low growls of death metal. The other hallmarks are there. Some rapid, tremolo picking, blast beats, and double bass.

What really sets Schammasch apart is their mastery of atmosphere. While this is clearly a metal album, so much of that is balanced by atmosphere. Take first track, “Winds That Pierce the Silence”. After a short piano intro, we get a guitar and drum slowly building for the next three minutes. I love that they are willing to let the song take some time, to really breathe. The sound is somewhat sinister, as the layers gradually come in, finally building to the metal crescendo that is the following track, “Ego Sum Omega”. The flow from the first track to the second is masterful, and the tension created has the listener so ready for the heaviness that this track brings.

Thus it is throughout the album. There is a very post-metal sensibility in the dynamics of Hearts of No Light, with crescendos and denouements throughout. The builds and then the releases come often enough to keep the music fascinating, but not so often that it feels they are forced.

The music has an intensely organic feel to it. It seems to really flow from the band, and subsequently flow across the listener. Vocals are almost chants at times, adding to the powerful atmosphere. Tracks like “Qadmon’s Heir” flow directly into “Rays Like Razors”, two of the strongest tracks on the album. “A Paradigm of Beauty” has an almost Joy Division feel to it, less metal, almost bordering on a pop song. It expertly sets up “Katabasis”, which may be my very favorite song on the album. Here we have another gradual build of just over 3 minutes, that culminates in an incredibly powerful track that elevates Hearts of No Light above many of its contemporaries. Final track, the lengthy and lethargic “Innermost, Lowermost Abyss” is 15 minutes of atmosphere. It may feel long at times, but after the amazing previous tracks, it is an excellent coda to the album.

Schammasch is one of those bands you need to experience. This isn’t an immediate album. I started listening to it digitally, and thought it was a good album. After about 4-5 listens, it went from good to great, and subsequent listens have elevated it to amazing, and I had to order the vinyl. This is easily one of my favorites of 2019, and there have been some incredible albums released this year.

A Swarm of the Sun – The Woods

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You know, some days are just lousy. They are. I don’t care how positive you feel, or how positive you try to be, some days just suck. It’s like life just wants you to know your place.

And that’s okay. Really, it is. Life shouldn’t be perfect all the time. It can’t be, if we are being honest with ourselves. There is a certain futility to what we do, at least it feels that way at times. I wouldn’t call it a hopelessness, that seems a bit melodramatic. But there exists a certain… something, a something that calls to a part of us we often hide, we often don’t want seen because it is a sign of weakness. A certain vulnerability that we might wish wasn’t there.

But A Swarm of the Sun wants us to remember that vulnerability. They want us to recognize that some days life gets the better of us. The Woods is the soundtrack for those days.

One could argue that simply calling The Woods a post-metal album is a bit reductive, but there is no question they are firmly in the post world. Comprised of only three tracks, the album still comes in at 39 minutes, with each track really reaching close to or above that 13 minute mark. These Swedes aren’t afraid to let things build. First track “Blackout” takes a full 8 1/2 minute before you might even think to call this a rock or metal record. This is all about the atmosphere, and I love that they let that be the driving force here. No words, just music. Beautiful, dark, contemplative music. Piano and strings really fill out the first 2/3 of the song, with the tension building throughout that time.

It is an excellent journey that reaches for that vulnerable part in all of us. With layers and textures, A Swarm of the Sun is able to tap into something deep within and convey a small portion of the human existence that we all now.

Follow up tracks “The Woods” and “And Heir to the Throne” continue the theme. We finally get some vocals on the second track. They are restrained, almost plaintive in nature. These aren’t vocals that blow your socks off, but they work perfectly for the music and the atmosphere that is being created. They display this same vulnerability that the album taps into. Minimal instrumentation accompanies the vocals and, again, the song builds so slowly it is almost painful at times.

But that restraint is what makes this such a compelling album. Yes, it takes some effort to get into. No, these aren’t songs that are going to get stuck in your head and have one humming them throughout the day. Yet, they are absolutely songs that will create feelings and emotions that will haunt the listener, long after the 39 minutes are over.

And, for me, sometimes that is the kind of music I love the most: music that reaches deep within to create an experience far greater than a catchy, 2 1/2 minute melody we are so used to. This isn’t feel good music, but it also isn’t oppressive. It’s just honest music that engages the listener and walks us through some of the darker parts of life. And that’s okay. We need to process that darkness some days. The Woods is a perfect soundtrack for those days, and a triumphant example of how powerful post-metal and its contrasting dynamics can be.

Altars of Grief – Iris

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I’m not sure I’m really able to do this album justice.

How’s that for a start? Iris by Canada’s Altars of Grief is a staggeringly powerful album, that draws me back regularly. It is a harrowing journey, emotionally wrenching, and leaves me feeling wrung out when the final notes fade.

So powerful is this record, I regret my deep desire to go back and listen to it again.

Art is difficult to define. For me, a key factor is purpose. I don’t know what the authorial purpose of Iris is, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t have one, and a powerful one at that. If nothing else, this is music that forces me to reflect on life, on my place in the world, on the impact others have had on me, and the small impact I may have on those that surround me.

I realize this is all sort of vague and nebulous. I’ll try to be a little more concrete. Altars of Grief play a blackened style of doom metal. There are blast beats, tremolo picking, harsh vocals, and vicious riffs. Yet, they are also so much more. We have moments of beautiful melody, quiet contemplation, and tenuous peace.

The clean vocals are excellent. At times very reminiscent of the late David Gold, from Woods of Ypres, at others, they are more soaring and melodious. The contrapuntal harsh vocals run the gamut. We have blackened shrieks, hardcore screams, and even some low, bone shaking death growls. The vocals are used to perfect effect, clean when the song calls for it, harsh when necessary. The guitars follow the same pattern. There are extremely heavy and crushing passages, that often move deftly into crystalline moments of tranquility. Keys and organs punctuate the guitars, never one overwhelming the other.

In many ways, Woods of Ypres is an excellent starting reference point for Iris. Yet this never feels derivative. Many of the same hallmarks are present, but Altars of Grief owns these moments so thoroughly that they become theirs.

Iris tells a story. A story of loss, grief, addiction, abandonment, and death. I’ll leave it to the individual to seek out the specifics. It is sufficient to say that this is a dark record. It doesn’t leave one feeling hopeful, but it does end with a certain sense of peace. And with music this powerful, and a subject matter this dark, peace is about the best one could hope for.

I really do find myself struggling somewhat with what to say about Iris. Musically, it is an amazing record, full of heavy blackened moments, slow, plodding doom moments, and plenty of beautiful, quiet passages. Lyrically, well, I’ve touched on that enough. As a father, it is a harrowing album. Emotionally, this albums devastates me. It is such a complete experience, and so stunningly cathartic, that when final strings fade, I can’t help but feel as though I’ve been through the wringer. This is proof positive that music has power and emotional weight. Iris, while not for the faint of heart, is an amazingly powerful, beautiful, and emotional experience, from first note to last.

Cult of Luna – A Dawn to Fear

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Formulaic isn’t necessarily bad. Especially when the formula works so freaking well.

But a formula in music should be a skeleton, a framework upon which something better is made. Yesterday, I was harsh on Tool for being too formulaic on their latest album, Fear Inoculum. But today, I am going to praise a band that has a definite formula.

What gives?

Well, here is the thing: Cult of Luna have a formula. You know there will be crushing guitars, hardcore vocals, pounding drums, and moments of quiet peace. There is the formula.

However, what makes Cult of Luna so amazing is their ability to build on that formula. Maybe it’s a 10+ minute song. Maybe it’s only 6 minutes. Maybe there is a slow build. Or perhaps the song punches you in the face from the very first note. A slower, more quiet song? They have those.

A Dawn to Fear is the seventh album from these Swedes. And they haven’t released a bad album yet. Their previous release, Mariner, a collaboration with Julie Christmas, remains one of my favorite albums of all time. Their third album, Salvation, was one of my introductions to post-metal and all the beauty and brutality that genre entails. A Dawn to Fear is a more than welcome addition to this titanic band’s oeuvre.

This is a heavy freaking album. First track, “The Silent Man” enters with pummeling drums (after a short feedback intro) and the guitars and bass kick in heavy and in your face pretty much right from the start. But we also have some amazing organ to temper the guitar and drums. Harsh vocals from Johannes Persson punctuate the instrumentation. And we see variations of this formula throughout.

However, it manages to never get boring because the formula is just a framework. Title track, “A Dawn to Fear” takes a full 5 minutes of slow building, clean vocals, clean guitars, before it drops the metal bomb on you. These are post-metal veterans at work here, showing how to manipulate dynamics to create atmosphere, to build and release tension, and to pull an emotional experience from the dense music at hand.

This is a long album, weighing in at 80 minutes. But unlike some other albums, I never find myself getting bored. Cult of Luna is so adept and creating tension and then building that release, that A Dawn to Fear thrills me throughout.

I don’t know where I would rank this album as far as Cult of Luna releases go. Doesn’t really matter, because these guys are such accomplished artists at this point. A Dawn to Fear is a thriving, emotional, epic ride from start to finish and is another piece of proof that Cult of Luna know their formula and are skilled to make the very most of it.

Tool – Fear Inoculum

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So far, all I’ve pretty much done is write about albums I like. And, well, that is fine to me. This isn’t a blog for reviews. I’ll leave that to others. Again, these are my reactions to music. And sometimes, that reaction is apathy.

So, with a heavy heart, I state that, in my opinion, Fear Inoculum by Tool is just fine.

And I’m neither surprised nor really disappointed. I mean, I thought that their previous album, released 13 FREAKING YEARS AGO, 10,000 Days was just fine as well. There were a few good tracks, and some filler crap, and a handful of songs that just bored me before they ever wrapped up.

Look, I won’t claim to be the most die-hard Tool fan ever. I like their previous music, and even would say that I think Lateralus is a brilliant album. But I don’t love it either. There are excellent tracks on it, but overall, it leaves me feeling a bit cold. Still, they are Tool, and I can’t deny the impact they have had on modern rock/metal.

Of course, that meant that their first album in over a decade was sure to create a bit of a stir.

Then the title track, “Fear Inoculum” dropped. I preordered the album, because this was Tool after all. And I listened to that song. Then I listened again. Then one more time. Then I decided to spend my time listening to songs that were actually interesting. But I was still open to giving the rest of the album a fair shot. And so it was released.

And, much to my surprise, what I found was an album where the proper songs (forget the stupid “interludes”) followed a formula. Yes, formulaic songs from Tool. Long songs (around 10 minutes), with a mellow, slow, quiet intro. This slowly builds, adding more instruments, eventually the song reaches some type of crescendo. Maybe it backs off and builds again, or maybe the crescendo comes at the very end. Either way, about halfway through the album and I was bored.

Yes, bored. Big time.

Here’s the thing. I dig progressive music, so nothing Tool is doing on the album wowed me in that regard. I have more than enough patience for long songs, if they do something interesting (Mirror Reaper anyone?), so it wasn’t that the songs were longer than your average tune. They just felt boring. Yes, we have crescendos and denouements, but I just kept waiting for the songs to reach a bit higher of a crescendo, so was left wanting more. And even formulaic music can be well appreciated. Take Cult of Luna. They have a certain formula, and it works. But they still mix it up enough that the songs feel different and fresh. Instead, the formula on Fear Inoculum makes each song sound almost generic.

They playing is fine. These guys are excellent musicians. But the album just never hits with the impact I was hoping for. It isn’t bad. None of the songs (again, ignoring the stupid interludes) are atrocious. They just all start to blend together as far as I am concerned, and nothing has made me want to come back to Fear Inoculum in the months since it has been released. They feel cold and clinical, surprising since older Tool had so damn much emotion, even if that emotion was often anger.

Others will disagree, and adamantly so. Tool has a somewhat rabid and, at times, myopic fan base who think that everything Tool does is the best and most original (despite the fact that many bands do and have done the same sort of thing and in many cases do it better). And that is fine. I won’t take issue with anyone who loves Fear Inoculum as, again, it isn’t a bad album by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s just sort of fine and a bit boring and forgettable. And if that isn’t damning with faint praise, I don’t know what is.

Neurosis – Through Silver in Blood

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We all know that life can change in a moment.

Sometimes those moments are major events. Other times, they are less so. I’d wager a guess that, at least for people who really love music, there are certain moments, albums, songs, that changed their musical lives as well.

I wouldn’t be overstating it to say that Through Silver in Blood by Neurosis changed my musical life.

Disconnected by Fates Warning, while an all time favorite album of mine, didn’t do much to change how I thought about music. It was still something that was pretty squarely in my wheelhouse. But Through Silver in Blood was something different all together. Discovering Neurosis opened entire new avenues of heavy music for me to explore. And I am grateful to this day that it did.

I’ve talked about heavy music here before (Mammoth Storm, Alruna). I’ve talked about challenging music (Mirror Reaper). Well, here we have both. Through Silver in Blood is dense. It is dark. It is a long album, with long songs. The vocals are uncompromising, with some growls, some screams, some good old hardcore wails.

The guitars build, swell, explode. Neurosis are masters of the fine art of crescendo and denouement. There are quiet moments on this album. Yet the serve to make the heavy moments mean all that much more. This is hardcore music that has been stretched and given room to become something much more, something different. There is some sludge here, there is some punk, and most importantly, we witness, through this and other Neurosis albums, the true birth of post-metal.

The title track starts with industrial noises. Drums then build in slowly and the song adds and adds until it explodes into one of the most punishing tracks I’ve ever heard. It continues to build, flow and wax and wane over the course of its 12 minutes, ending with a pounding drum beat that drives the listener into submission. “Aeon” begins with piano and string, until the bomb drops, almost a full 3 minutes in, with crushing guitars and vocals that could strip the paint right off the wall.

But what makes Neurosis, and Through Silver in Blood, so powerful and effective is their refusal to keep the needle pegged at 11. Dynamics abound, with a scaling back of the songs that prevents it from all feeling like too much. “Locust Star” would be the one exception to this, and even that takes over a full minute to really begin.

I openly admit that Neurosis is one of my favorite bands. Depending on the day, they are either pretty much even with Fates Warning, or possibly just a tad ahead. Through Silver in Blood is my “desert island” album. If I could listen to only one more album for the rest of my life, this would be it. There are enough dynamics, enough amazing music, that this has it all. But it isn’t easy. It isn’t accessible. Not everyone is going to listen to and enjoy this album. Heck, it even took me a while of really sitting down and listening to Neurosis before it clicked for me. But once it did, it clicked hard. And Through Silver in Blood is one of the most important and influential albums that most people have never heard.

Bell Witch – Mirror Reaper

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Doom metal. It is epic, often majestic, heavy in the ponderous sense of the word It tends to be on the slower side, often with powerful, soaring vocals. Birthed in the roots of Black Sabbath, and honed to a real edge with the release of Candlemass’ essential Epica Doomica Metalicus, it is one of my very favorite sub-genres of metal.

And then there is funeral doom.

Funeral doom is a different beast all together. True, it is still rooted in doom metal, and shares many of the same hallmarks. It also borrows from doom/death. It then fuses these elements into one of the most punishing, extreme, esoteric, and inaccessible styles of music out there.

Take Mirror Reaper by Bell Witch. First off, look at that artwork. No, really. Look at it. It is beautiful. But it is also haunting, menacing, and creepy as hell. Then look at the song list. It consists of “Mirror Reaper”, and… well, that’s it. Yes, the album Mirror Reaper has a single song, the track titled “Mirror Reaper”. And then look at the run time for the album. It is 83 minutes and 15 seconds.

Add that all up and, in my experience, there are basically two reactions. On the one hand, I have seen almost revulsion, and instant reaction of “no way!” It is too much, too long, too ponderous. I get that. But on the other hand, it can also lead to fascination.

That’s what happened to me. I wasn’t familiar with the band prior to the 2017 release of Mirror Reaper, but I was instantly intrigued and decided I had to know more. Context is often king, and in this case that holds very true. Bell Witch is a 2 person band, just bass, drums, and vocals. And after the 2015 release of Four Phantoms, the drummer Adrian Guerra, passed away. The band carried on, with Jesse Shreibman joining bassist Dylan Desmond to continue the band. Mirror Reaper acts as a tribute to their lost brother, and that sense of loss permeates every minute of this epic.

The music is very stripped down. It is ponderously slow, with haunting clean vocals, and low, guttural growls that shake the roots of the earth. The drums plod, slowly building over the course of the song. Often the music builds, slowly, only to be stripped back down to a single, sustained note. The bass alternates between clean and clear, to heavily distorted and grinding.

Yet Bell Witch expertly prevents the music from every becoming too, well, too anything. It could be slower, but it doesn’t. It could get much, much heavier, but it restrains. Just when you think it is going to be too much of the same thing, and become boring, it will switch it up just enough to keep it interesting. For me, that is really what makes this such a fascinating album. It is too much, really, I recognize it is. But it balances all of its excess with such a level of care, concern, and skill that it is a haunting work I find myself drawn back to time and again.