52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #4

Neurosis – Times of Grace

(Relapse Records/Music for Nations, 1999)

Picture this: a young man wearing oversized baggy combat trousers, Airwalk skate shoes, and a dope Korn T-shirt has just listened to a free Kerrang! CD highlighting releases of 1999. This kid was blown away by a weird, angry lot hammering on about not being able to “see California without Marlon Brando’s eyes” or some such nonsense, but he couldn’t recall the band’s name. While wandering around HMV in Aberdeen going through a “Swimmy, Swammy, Swanson… Samsonite!” process in his mind, a bolt of recognition struck mid-perusal of the metal section. Neurosis – Times of Grace! This had to be it. Why else would the recognition feel so strong? Plus the artwork was incredible, so the young man tripped over his own trouser legs in his hurry to the till. A few hours later at home with his trusty Aiwa CD player, confusion and fear washed over him. The dark and obscure sounds weren’t what he expected at all, more Wicker Man soundtrack than Blade, and on inspecting the aforementioned Kerrang! CD it became apparent that he had intended to be a Slipknot boy rather than a Neurosis man.

Nearly 20 years later this Neurosis man is thinking back to one of the best mistakes he ever made. Times of Grace is a majestic, frightening, and bewitching album. It’s pure, heavy, and regularly surprising. It might not have converted that youngster instantly, but the quality of those dark sounds was intriguing enough to bring him back again and again. On seeing Neurosis, sandwiched by Today is the Day and Voivod (still one of the best line-ups I’ve seen?), at The Cathouse in Glasgow during freshers’ week at university, my bleeding ears told me that I was a complete convert. The bleak yet warm heaviness, the visual show that was so carefully curated to complement the music, the brilliance of both vocalists, and the dedication to music that ignored genre boundaries was inspirational and perspective-altering. Even if all Neurosis ever did was make me a fan of their music then Times of Grace would still occupy this position on the list, but without them it would have been a much longer route to Isis, Mogwai, Aereogramme, Swans, OHHMS, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Sleep, and so many other bands that have enriched my life. Other than doing an Arts degree, that HMV purchase in 1999 might be the most influential mistake I’ve made in life.

“Suspended in Light” begins as something from 2001: A Space Odyssey, those sci-fi-like beeps still send shivers along my spine, but by its end the earthy tones and grounded focus of this album have begun to shine through. The listener may want to hold on to the light that exists in that most atmospheric of opening tracks, as the first 90 seconds of “The Doorway” is bleak and bruising stuff. It’s not quite the near death of listening to Through Silver in Blood but it is an oppressive and heavy sound that will have you clinging to any metaphorical security blankets you have stowed away. Steve Albini has used his apparent genius to draw out a more natural sound from Neurosis. The guitars are gritty and crunchy but retain a hint of warmth that brings the music that bit closer to your heart than Through Silver… which, while stunning in its own way, holds you at arm’s length with its intensity. The drums have a depth that somehow brings gargantuan sounds and wonderful subtlety to these tracks at the same time, while nurturing a naturalised tribal quality. This is most evident in “Under the Surface” with its slow burn powered by rumbling toms, whining, squeaking, groaning guitars, and a delectable control of the desire to unleash untold fury. Like edging, but less hassle. Structurally it’s hard to describe but Neurosis show no fear of allowing the momentum to crash out from underneath the song. They extend ambient passages for minutes, almost tormenting the listener with the anticipation of the cataclysmic sounds that surely await them, and with dual screams from Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till of, “your shell is hollow, so am I/the rest will follow, so will I”, that climactic aural wall collapses on you with piledriver force.

“The Last You’ll Know” pursues this crushing feeling with landslide plunges into an imaginary mire, but the scything guitar sound makes it an even more bleak and extreme experience. However, intricate, barely audible backing vocals, keyboards, and samples are indicative of the detailed approach Neurosis employ, and even in their most oppressively heavy songs there is a wealth of aural and emotional stimulation to balance the overwhelming waves of heaviness. Here, the naturalised feel that Albini encourages is promoted by the undeniable beauty of the world’s favourite instrument, bagpipes. It is one of the more memorable passages, evoking a Celtic longing for open spaces and rugged wilderness, on an album that specialises in unforgettable and unique sounds. “Away” is equally evocative but is willing to bring this to bear with a pared back folk approach that is so gentle it repeatedly threatens to lull itself to sleep, at one point almost being carried off on the wind. This track is a startling achievement, fusing folk, post rock, and doom with patience and care that belies the raw emotion at its heart. The founding minutes of the song will send listeners in the direction of Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till’s brilliant solo folk projects, while the latter stages of this song will find their continuation in two of Neurosis’ most thoughtful and “gentle” albums, A Sun That Never Sets and The Eye of Every Storm.

The title track reignites the intensity that fuelled the record’s opening tracks before “The Road to Sovereignty” carries us quietly to a much-needed rest. At this point your mind will start to slowly recover memories of the physical and spiritual challenge you just endured. My mind inevitably returns to the sounds and feelings of “End of the Harvest”. It feels like a séance gone wrong and is powerfully primal, tearing at your soul with lines like, “have you ever tasted the soil (destiny)/and felt your own death in your veins”. There is a dedication to texture, progressive repetition, and vocal viciousness that develops the song into an emotional epic that, even on a record of this quality, stands out. It is a song you will simultaneously wish to revisit yet feel too drained to even contemplate. “End of the Harvest” is inspirationally destructive music.    

Times of Grace feels like a reverse Wicker Man where what appears to be violent and awful turns out to be organic, life-loving, and spiritual. Obviously, that wouldn’t make such an entertaining film, but as a piece of music it is an incredible decades-long journey that promises eternal enrichment. I haven’t even touched on the accompaniment record Grace that Neurosis produced under their instrumental and ambient Tribes of Neurot alternative identity, but there is so much depth in this record that I feel no urge to complicate or cloud the experience. Neurosis recorded an album that defines a whole genre of music for me. Every crafted sound pulls at me, crashes over me, or carries me away, and while it may be nearly 20 years since I first listened to it, Times of Grace still surprises, scares, and inspires me.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #23

Shrinebuilder – Self-titled

(Neurot Recordings, 2009)

Buy the album here

Shrinebuilder are the perfect supergroup.  The band contains members of some of the most respected bands in stoner and doom.  Wino of Saint Vitus and The Obsessed, Dale Crover of Melvins, Al Cisneros of Sleep and Om, and Scott Kelly of Neurosis combine to create a record of such unity and breadth it would take any other band an entire career to come close.  While the members share common musical ground, there is a rich diversity of vision, tone, and experience that produces a new experience on each subsequent listen of this record.  In Wino and Kelly the band boasts two of the most distinct voices in contemporary heavy music.  Crover’s legendary drum sound has helped lay a doom blueprint, and Al Cisneros can lay claim to recording stoner rock’s defining albums with Sleep and having the most gloriously fuzzed out bass sound around. Shrinebuilder themselves have only produced one album to date, but perhaps with this near perfect record their work is done.

It is totemic music that inspires images of pagan celebration and worship, draws on natural and celestial symbols, and drives it all home with the full force of false gods.  In “Solar Benediction” and “Pyramid of the Moon” we are taken on a voyage through day and night as if watching the skies from the start of human civilisation.  Shrinebuilder ask us to imagine what these most omnipresent of celestial bodies would have meant to people at the earliest stage of development of our societies; the fear, awe, and war that would have ensued in our attempts to make sense of that which is out of reach.  “Solar Benediction” burns with the power of the sun.  The track channels the rage of a burning desert in to a beautiful contemplation of the birth of civilisation, religion, and war.  No time is wasted with Wino’s distinct wail giving way to the heavy riff and thick growl of Scott Kelly.  Al Cisneros’ beautiful high-pitched, fuzzed-out bass sound and Crover’s full, earthy drum tones keep the track grounded and natural feeling, but the overall sensation is one of endless power.  It finds its counterpoint in “Pyramid of the Moon” with its more Sleep-esque riff and almost spoken vocal bringing the temperature down.  Kelly’s sonorous tone will be familiar to fans of his solo acoustic work, but it finds a more fitting home here with the beautiful doom guitar sounds that he and Wino exchange throughout.  The paganist atmosphere escalates through the mid-section of the song with droned chanting, winding and ethereal solos, and heartbeat-like bass drum sounds that produce the effect of a pounding tribal mass. 

The light and dark of Shrinebuilder are equally compelling, but in “Blind for All to See” we are trapped in the contemplative slow-burn of a half-light dusk, reacting to the vibrations and squeals of experimental guitars but held in captive sway by its alluring bass sound.  Cisneros has the unmatched ability to create soothing, sensual, addictive basslines that once heard you hope will never end.  The unpredictable guitars, restrained drums, and deep vocals just glide over or bounce off this bassline as if it is the monolith towering over awe-inspired worshippers.  “The Architect” is much more immediate with an opening riff which seems to have inspired later era Mastodon.  Wino’s voice and incredible timing are on full display, patiently finding the perfect moment to accentuate the riff with an ascending wail or gentle word, and never attempting to dominate the song.  At under six minutes, “The Architect” is the most direct and deliberately catchy of the songs on Shrinebuilder but still carries the atmosphere of pagan worship that drives this album.  The bass solo at the end carries in to final track “Science of Anger” and its overlapping, squeezed guitar sounds and gentle vocals.  The slow riffing takes centre stage this time with Wino’s beautiful voice through the verses setting up the explosion of Scott Kelly’s huge chorus riff and verse.  Wino’s delivery of the line “Humbly I stand / Awestruck and numb” is an album highlight for me and cements “Science of Anger” as the most memorable track.  Inspired by Sleep’s stoner riffing, infused with Saint Vitus’ more delicate tones, and driven by Neurosis-like intensity this final song has all the elements that make this record so special. 

A darkly gentle exploration of the birth of civilisation and humanity’s attempts to understand where it belongs among it all, this record is testament to the strengths of each musician here.  It opens itself in waves, inviting further enquiries, always with something more to offer, another stone to overturn.  And while it may pay homage to innumerable influences, Shrinebuilder has become a benchmark for modern stoner and doom that may even surpass the best efforts of each member’s full-time band. 

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #29

Gojira – From Mars to Sirius

(Listenable Records, 2005)

Buy the album here

Godzilla is a gigantic monster.  Whales are huge mammals.  The distance from Mars to Sirius is unimaginably great.  Gojira somehow manages to make sounds that seem larger than all these things.  Theirs is a crushingly heavy yet uplifting sound that holds a contemplative beauty in its brutality.  From Mars to Sirius is an album that will make you feel like a colossus astride the globe, Joe Duplantier’s roars flowing through your veins, but invigorated by a protective sense of belonging to its creatures, resources, and potential.  The heaviness, the deep growled and screamed vocals, the death metal-inspired drums, and thick, equal parts doom/death guitars place Gojira as one of the more extreme bands in mainstream heavy metal.  While heavy metal has often dealt with feelings of isolation, Gojira want us to see that we’re all part of the same ecology, and that we all have a part to play in keeping it alive… even if their music is devastating to all that stand in its path.

Extreme metal tends to engender assumptions.  These can range from the obvious stereotype of thuggish guys peddling mindless noise, to the belief that death metal vocals can be about nothing other than violence.  And while there are plenty of bands throwing their hands high in the air to proudly lay claim to those stereotypes, Gojira show us the other side of extreme music where heaviness, aggression, and loudness are about caring deeply for something, bringing people together, and hoping to be a force for positive change.  In fact, Gojira are at their most effective when their heaviness is more natural or seemingly incidental, as if just an extension of their feelings on the subject.  The Way of all Flesh, the follow up to From Mars..., struggles to produce the same emotional connection simply because it is hitting its listeners too hard.  But here we have incredible moments of heaviness on “From The Sky”, “Where Dragons Dwell”, and “Flying Whales” that never overstep, never impede your emotional connection, and never cease the spine tingling feeling that inspires you to hug everyone and simultaneously kick holes in the wall.  Gojira do what all good heavy metal bands should do: bludgeon you around the ears and make you smile about it.

For many, From Mars… would have been their first Gojira listening experience, but looking back, it’s incredible to note how much of a leap forward in songwriting, performance, and production the album represents.  While the moments of djent-inspired complexity and bruising vocals are all present on their earlier albums, they lack the individuality and ear for hooks and doom heaviness that allows them to stand apart on this and later albums.  The opening track “Ocean Planet” introduces the running theme of the album with gentle whale song, and instantly displays a newfound confidence in their unique identity with riffs built around brutal repeated breakdowns and pinched harmonics, and lyrics preoccupied with the interweaving of nature and human consciousness.  “Backbone” does similar work with a more free-flowing, high tempo approach, blastbeats, expansive guitar sounds, and extended vocal growls.  It’s an attention-grabbing opening salvo filled with diverse sounds, textures, and emotions.  Oddly, having grown up on 90s metal like Machine Head and Fear Factory, Gojira give me a little of everything I’m looking for from heavy music: big guitar sounds, ferocious vocals, double bass pedal action, and loads of pinched harmonics, but with enough hook and melody for me to latch on to.  The main difference being that Gojira wrap it up in the theme of nature and spirituality, so while they’re making you feel like a mean, bad-ass… you’re a caring, mean, bad-ass.

Back-to-back tracks “From Mars” and “To Sirius” take us on an abbreviated journey from the former’s gentle, whispered prelude to the enormous, adrenaline-pumping genius of the latter’s opening riff.  Gojira’s ability to take a simple riff and make it feel epic with the infusion of Mario Duplantier’s intense double-bass led drumming, and the elongated vowels of brother Joe’s death vocals is unmatched in metal right now.  At times Joe Duplantier’s cries are like sheet lightning flashing across the sky, leaving only the memory of its existence before the thunder and depth of his death growl comes to remind you of its power.  “The Heaviest Matter in the Universe” and “Global Warming” are the high points of an album that has not a single bad song.  The former is a pit-starting, thrash-death masterpiece that briefly toys with being too heavy before punishing you with the catchiest song about mental and spiritual anguish you’re likely to hear.  The latter closes out the album with a beautiful, diverse, and rich prog-death culmination of the thematic threads introduced with “Ocean Planet”.  Gojira wear their hearts on their sleeves here, unafraid to proclaim a sense of powerlessness in the face of human arrogance and wastefulness:

We are taking everything for granted
I don't think we should do this now
And when I see the smoke all around
I feel like I'm not

From humankind down there
I feel like glaciers are my eyes
And mountains are my head
My heart is ocean
And I feel all alone
Because everybody's wrong

But they are a positive and forward-thinking group so never let go of hope:

I had this dream, our planet surviving
The guiding stars always growing
And all the worlds
The fates all the countries
They're all rebuilding at the same time
I never fell and always believed in
We could evolve and get older
Open your eyes and let all this flow
Now see a new hope is growing inside

From Mars… is a perfect unit.  Nothing stands out too far, there is nothing that doesn’t belong.  It is focused and aggressive, but confident enough to explore and experiment.  It is unendingly catchy, but has enough depth to have you interested in new ways on every return.  Gojira have, in making an album about the dangers the earth faces, channelled their frustration, hopes, and desires into a timeless piece of music.  It has all the sonic qualities that suggest it will age well, and, even 12 years on, it is as vibrant and modern as it was on its release.  I hope, as I imagine the band do, that the album’s warnings of irreversible damage to the planet don’t prove to be as timeless as I think the music itself will.  Let the warnings be heard.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #43

Candlemass – Epicus Doomicus Metallicus

(Black Dragon Records, 1986)

Few album titles lay out quite so clearly what the listener should expect, fewer still can claim to have given a sub-genre its name. The dog latin's lack of subtlety here perfectly establishes what is about to happen: it's going to be epic doom metal, but it's going to take twice as long to say. 42 minutes is not a long album, but with only 6 tracks making up that time Epicus Doomicus Metallicus could be seen as the antidote to another classic metal album from the same year, Slayer's Reign In Blood, in which 10 tracks tear by in less than 29 minutes. The rabid ferocity of that thrash masterpiece finds its counterpoint in the operatic stylings of bassist and songwriter Leif Edling's most complete work. Leif deliberately seeks to slow down and simplify where other bands were speeding up and complicating, finding more influence in Black Sabbath than 1970s punk.  This is an album and a band without which I would not be listening to this kind of music. 

Stoaters

Candlemass is Leif's band, and while he and guitarist Mats Björkman remain today, this debut album was the only outing for Matz Ekström on drums and the under-rated Johan Langquist on vocals.  Leif even goes as far as dedicating opening track, “Solitude”, to himself in the album liner notes. It's not often you'll think of a bassist as a tortured artist, but in the album's first verse we find epic doom metal's leading man distilled in to these words:

I'm sitting here alone in the darkness

Waiting to be free

Lonely and forlorn I am crying

I long for my time to come

Death means just life

Please let me die in solitude

These first lyrics from Candlemass set them out from other doom metal because, while they engage with mythology and fantasy imagery, there is a personal and emotional touch akin to gothic literature and its use of pathetic fallacy. Songs like “Black Stone Wielder” and “A Sorcerer's Pledge” are bursting with portentous weather and buildings that appear to be watching and listening, while “Under The Oak” presents nature as both man's protector and a symbol of danger.

This gothic lyrical setting is perfect for the big, echoey drums, relatively clean guitar sound, and the strong baritone vocals that always stop short of becoming unrestrained or histrionic. In my favourite track, “Demon's Gate” (inspired by Lucio Fulci's strangely moving flawed masterpiece, “The Beyond”), Langquist's clean and bold vocals are the perfect expression of a man weighed heavy with fear, but determined to be strong in the face of ultimate evil. The spoken word and keyboard intro references the strangely gothic atmosphere of “The Beyond”, before slow-paced riffing carries us through the verses to an extended bridge sequence with traded guitar solos and powerful drumming. The double bass pedal throughout this song is like some inner drive pushing the listener towards the demon's gate feeling empowered but also afraid of the terror awaiting them. Conjuring a fear of the darkness with a simultaneous feeling of power derived from that same darkness, “Demon's Gate” is the epitome of epic doom metal.

“Crystal Ball” is more direct. Langquist tears in to the opening riff with the line, “Black heart, your soul is mine”, breaking the riff down in to some low end chugging. It's an immediately heavier sound: the bass punches right through to the listener accompanied by thunderous drumming; the chorus only bringing brief respite. Candlemass even go fast in this song with a double bass driven bridge section that feels like rolling thunder on an open plain, individual lightning strikes of perfectly delivered guitar solo lighting the way. “Black Stone Wielder” slows things down again with the album's best riff, most headbanging worthy moments, and pinpoint solos. A somewhat lacklustre vocal lets the song down, but it's otherwise as strong as anything on this album.

“A Sorcerer's Pledge” brings the album to a close with a three-part epic about a cursed, sunless earth and man's foolishness in believing legends or prophecies. While many believe that Messiah Marcolin is the band's iconic best vocalist, and many more will think of “Bewitched” from second album Nightfall as their most recognisable song, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus is where Candlemass created their own legend and even coined the name for their own sub-genre. While later albums like Death Magic Doom (an attempt to create another sub-genre?) are strong releases, Candlemass are yet to surpass the standards they set on this very first attempt.  If you want epic doom metal, look no further.     

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #45

Katatonia – The Great Cold Distance

(Peaceville Records, 2006)

Buy the album here

On the way to Tower Records in Shibuya in 2006 there was a small, and I assume independent, music shop. Unlike the amazingly durable Tower Records which still exists, I also assume that the shop has long since closed, but on that sunny early summer day over 10 years ago they performed their greatest moment of capitalist charity. They were selling off CDs sitting in boxes left on the pavement in front of the shop window. You would assume that these CDs were the unsellable rubbish of 2006, such as Nick Lachey's What's Left Of Me, and that may have been so, but there was at least one gem in there not even hidden from the eyes of Tokyo's shoppers. Was I the only one seeing this? Katatonia's The Great Cold Distance was in plain sight with a price so low that I still think I'm misremembering it. The exchange rate has changed a lot since then, but in 2006 ¥500 would have been equivalent to roughly £2.50, which makes this album one of the greatest value purchases of all time. It was still a very new release at that time, and I've failed in my attempts to apply logic to its pricing other than to surmise that Japan isn't hot for sorrowful, melodic, doom-inspired metal from depressed looking Swedes. Japan's loss was my gain, and Katatonia and I have been having a love affair ever since.

Some might think that it's difficult to get close to a band with the appropriately cold and distant approach to songwriting that Katatonia display here. But the almost clinical delivery, crisp production, and Jonas Renkse's restrained melodic vocals lend their sorrow a certain Brechtian distance that promotes deep contemplation rather than expressive anguish, and allow the more “metal” moments to stand out. That's not to say this record isn't sonically as well as emotionally heavy. With brutal thrashers like “The Itch” Katatonia display the ferocity that makes clear their associations with acts like Opeth, Bloodbath, and even their legendary British indie label, Peaceville. But Katatonia's music works in different ways to heavy music predicated on the notion that lighter moments, such as a groovy guitar riff in an otherwise brutal grindcore song, provide the necessary relief and respite from the intense building of tension that precedes it. On The Great Cold Distance the musically heavier moments are the listener's chance to escape the sorrowful darkness of the gentle instrumentation and introspection that are at the heart of what Katatonia do. Banging your head to the heavy parts of “Soil's Song” provides an escape from the oppressive wintery feel of the opening and bridge sections, as if releasing you from the tundra of this Swedish soil.

“My Twin” and “Consternation” encapsulate all that later Katatonia have come to represent: the former providing a forlorn ballad with a catchy and floating chorus, while the latter displays Anders Nyström's vicious guitar sound, superb songwriting, and drumming equally at home in death metal and acoustic folk. In fact, it's Katatonia's songwriting excellence and skill with their respective instruments that sets them apart from other bands that have tried such melodic dark metal. No other band can appeal equally to fans of Evanescence and Death. If you are in the position of trying to convince a friend that metal is for them then Katatonia might be the ideal gateway band to get them hooked on even harder stuff.

“In The White” is the cold, distant heart of this album, and is the perfect song with which to introduce newcomers. The poppy bass line counters lilting guitars that lead us to Renkse's opening lullaby:

Are you in or are you out

The words are stones in my mouth

Hush little baby don't you cry

Truth comes down

Strikes me in the eye

The verses float along on the bass line allowing the vocal to gently guide us through this dark loneliness before the chorus offers a solution:

To overcome this

I become one with

The quiet cold of late November

But as with all Katatonia, this respite is fleeting and we are pulled back down to the “quiet cold”. It's a song, an album, and a band that balances hope and despair, light and dark. Even though it was a warm, sunny day in Tokyo when I was a newcomer to Katatonia, I will always remember it as a sharp, cold, dark, and beautiful moment in a frozen Scandinavian landscape. Japan has had my heart since I lived there over 10 years ago, but my musical heart has been pulling towards Sweden ever since that day in 2006.

52 Albums That Shaped My Life - #50

Crowbar – Odd Fellows Rest

(Mayhem Records, 1998/Spitfire Records, 1999)

Buy the album here

Kerrang! magazine is going to get several mentions during the countdown of these albums. No matter how much I think of it as being neon shit these days, I have to remember the influence it had over me as I found my way through more and more heavy music in the late 90s. The staff of Kerrang! at the time deserve credit for bringing me to bands like Earthtone9 (reviewed in the last post), Vision of Disorder, and specifically Crowbar. Before I had access to the internet, or even knew what it really was, Kerrang! reviewed albums and gigs that captured my imagination and had me flicking through the CD sections of Virgin megastores, One Up in Aberdeen, and the sole current survivor, HMV, often more in hope than expectation. I was lucky enough to find Odd Fellows Rest, the first Crowbar album I heard, and still my favourite.

The band name merely hints at the level of heaviness Crowbar want to unleash. They have been justifiably tagged as progenitors of sludge metal, along with fellow NOLA stalwarts Eyehategod, Acid Bath (from whom they hired guitarist Sammy Duet), and fuzz-driven maniacs Melvins, and the sound on this album gives you everything you need to know about the sub-genre. The weight of the sound on songs like “Carry The Load” pulls the tempo down in to the dirt, as if the listener is wading through the swamps of Louisiana. Every riff attempts to crush with sheer heaviness, while the rhythm section feels like Black Sabbath would if they were all 10 tonne giants playing in the atmospheric pressure of Venus. Oddly the first song, “Planets Collide”, is one of the gentlest on the album and Crowbar's standout “melodic” track, pulling melancholic wailing out of verse guitars and vocals. It doesn't lurch from heavy to soft, or dark to light, but layers these sounds in a simultaneously depressive and uplifting epic. The song's final rousing screams of “now watch your planets collide” set up the epic misery of this album – an aural journey through emotions so cripplingly intense that the music barely contains the pressure.

In “December's Spawn” and “Behind The Black Horizon” Crowbar return to this beautiful melding of dark and light with the more sorrowful range of Kirk Windstein's vocals providing perfect balance to the underlying intensity. It is a balance that provides physical and mental respite from the otherwise unrelenting nature of songs like “...And Suffer As One”, “1000 Year Internal War”, “It's All In The Gravity”, and “New Man Born” which hammer home the emotional struggle at the heart of this music. “Scattered Pieces Lay”, with its soaring repetition of the line, “Love... All Is Gone Away”, and touching lead guitar work, brilliantly brings us to the relative caress of title track, “Odd Fellows Rest”, where the juggernauts of this album seem to finally find salvation in clean guitar work and echoey vocals reminiscent of Pantera's cover of “Planet Caravan”. If I felt like this should be where everything ended, I am quickly disavowed of that view with the hardcore attack of album closer “On Frozen Ground”: a brilliant song that encapsulates the power of Crowbar and this album with frantic speed, anger, sorrow, and epic harmonised guitars. For those of us with the 1999 release of the album, the bonus track “Remember Tomorrow”, a cover of Iron Maiden's classic from 1980 (also covered by Opeth and Metallica), shows how confident Kirk and the band had become with their sound by seamlessly drawing this song in to the unique atmosphere of this beautiful and heavy album.

Odd Fellows Rest was the first album to provide me with a clear vision of the type of music I connect with - music that feels as if it is on the verge of breaking down at any moment. Essentially, it is emotional melodrama, often epic in nature, that provides the exaggerated sounds that I want as an outlet. Sounds so heavy they threaten their own destruction.

[for more sounds that threaten their own destruction – or just dodgy production - see also "Through Silver in Blood" by Neurosis, "Anointing Of Seer" by High On Fire, "Peddlers of Death" by Black Label Society, "Floyd The Barber" by Nirvana]