Small Stone Records
Luder. Little known, I suspect, outside knots of die hard progressive metal afficionados. This album should broaden the band’s appeal. It offers nine creative, convincing, eclectic compositions that draw, by turns, on waves of psychedelia and stoner, touches of doom and goth and dollops of grunge. Strung together by high quality playing and harmonic arrangements, the band have delivered a very fine genre-hopping metal album.
There’s always a moment of trepidation as the CD of a band about whom I know nothing disappears into the guts of the stomp box. So it was relief, swiftly giving way to pleasure, that greeted the speakers crackling into life with the first of Phil Durr’s epic guitar growls on ‘Never Liked You’.
The next surprise is the vocals. Sue Lott has an unexpectedly melodic voice for such a sweeping, often dark and complex soundscape. She provides the melodic light to the music’s shadow and shade. It works well. Oddly there is a sprinkling of sweetness here and there (‘You Try It’ or ‘Heartfelt’) that could be Julianne Regan out of All About Eve for a moment.
The third ingredient that sets this album apart from the average is the rhythm section. Especially the superb drumming of Eric Miller whose whirlwind fills and symphonic crashes are irresistible. He sets the time changes with metronomic flourish and marshalls the space and density with a conductors’ aplomb.
The band hail from north Carolina and this is their second album following 2009’s debut ‘Sonoluminescence’. They clearly have a penchant for impenetrable album titles. ‘Adelphophagia’ is apparently nothing to do with an eating disorder related to a golden-throated north London chanteuse, but instead the phenomenon of one embryo consuming another in utero. I choose not to explore how this condition manifests itself in the music…
The album’s defining track is ‘Dirge’, a multi-layered slab of textures, rhythms, tones and depth that clocks in at just shy of 10 minutes. The soaring, wailing guitar solos spiral and swoop like they are clawing at the walls for freedom. The riffs contort into an unholy assault and all the time the vocals sit amongst the churn as if a fig leaf for sensibility.
That said, perhaps the most ambitious track is a cover of David Bowie’s 1997 single ‘Afraid of Americans’, which shows the confidence of the band as they stay true to Bowie’s descending powerpop melodies whilst hammering out a fearsome chug. Other highlights are ‘Ask The Sky’ and ‘Astrolabe’, but in truth there is not a weak track here.
Recommended. Make this your go-to prog metal album of the Spring.
* * * * *
Review by Dave Atkinson
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Power Plays w/c 15 April 2024
ENMY The Ledge (FiXT)
KAROBELA Get Hard (indie)
KATH & THE KICKS Neptune (indie)
THE BEE TELLERS River Poem (Black Sand Records)
LAUREN FREEBIRD Like A Bomb (indie)
Featured Albums w/c 15 April 2024
09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023
14:00-16:00 KATARINA PEJAK – Pearls On A String (Ruf Records)
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