Rarely do I find good reason to write a
review that is positive. I find that good reviews lack tension and
are generally boring to read. But I felt it necessary to thank the
North Carolina band MAKE for their album Trephine. It is a
record that simply sings to me on multiple levels and hits the
listener right in the gut, at just the right moments. Its swaying
dynamic flourishes are not boring or unnecessarily repeated like on
your typical Isis or Neurosis record, but rather are used as tension
relievers between the titanic riffing (I don't use the word “Titanic”
lightly. I am fully aware of how cliché it must sound). There is
this sense of triumphant beguile that comes from the repetition and
slight variation of Trephine's multitudinous and layered riff
sequences. On top of that these dudes know how to scream in a way
that is atmospheric, yet complimentary to the body of the songs.
Although you could call this an instrumental record, I couldn't see
it having the same effect without the raunchy, growled vocals these
dudes put forth. There's a sort of undeniable groove that permeates
everything they do and forces you to listen as if your life depended
on it. Sadly, the record looses a bit of it's momentum near the end,
possibly due to its slightly long running time, but it is nonetheless
one of the most spiritual and powerful metal records of the past five
years. Whilst bands like High On Fire and Mastodon impress with their
sheer technical and imaginative prowess, their music's edge wears off
over time and their music becomes mundane. The atmospherics of this
record make it such a hefty beast to take in, that the riffs are
blanketed and hidden in such a way that you have to listen to it
multiple times before you can get the full picture, and even then
there seems to be more sonic intricacies left undiscovered. It's an
album that relies on the listeners imagination to fill in the blanks.
The technical skill and writing prowess of MAKE is impressive, but on
Trephine it's what they don't play that shows how great of a
band they are.
