Album Review: MAKE - Trephine

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.  

Album Review: Behold! The Monolith - Defender / Redeemist

Now that is some freaking album artwork.

Behold! The Monolith's second record, Defender / Redeemist, is a step up from their debut in many ways. Primarily the arrangements and performances are tighter and more visceral. However, despite overwhelming potential for killer live performances, the band does not show originality or ingenuity when it comes to studio recordings. The guitars are mixed way too loud, making the other instruments seem less important, and the vocals are so low in the mix that they are relegated an atmospheric element rather than a melodic driver. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but in the case of this album the songs really needed a soaring vocalist to make the indulgent guitar lines sound a little less egotistical.

However, I don't want to be too critical of this guitar player, because he has some serious chops. Out of all the modern stoner-metal guitar players, he is probably the most sophisticated technically. But from his impressive skill comes a fundamental flaw: he lacks spirit. The stoner and doom genres were founded upon rawness, and it's the lack of this fundamental element that makes him sound less like Tony Iommi and more like Randy Rhodes trying to impersonate Tony Iommi. In short, it just doesn't sound natural.

Assuming that he is the primary creative and writing force behind this group as is likely considering the overbearing placement of guitars in the mix, he needs to focus less on cramming as many ideas as possible into songs and more on making one or two good ideas fit together seamlessly. The transitions between riffs on Reedemist are not only abrupt, but also predictable. Abruptness works in thrash, death, and black metal, but Monolith's band aesthetic and tonal nature indicate that they don't want to be Anthrax, Dying Fetus, or Venom. They want to be the new Sleep, yet they end up sounding like YOB trying too hard to be Mastodon.

Of course the typical comeback argument is always, “Nah man we just want to be ourselves.” Let mm just say that that is not only the typical artist's response, but especially the typical stoner artist's response. When I listen to a lot of today's “stoner” metal I often think that the people producing it are simply so stoned when they are writing that the recycled rip-offs they produce actually appear to them to be completely original ideas indicative of their envisioned idea of their band. They are effectively really loud DJ's creating playlists of their favorite artist’s music, changing a few things around, and calling it their own work. Sadly record labels releasing this stuff don't seem to care too much either since a large portion of their market wont hear it as ripped-off, or if they do will also be too stoned to care, they will consider it totally “new” and desirable. The genre with its dystopian, tormented, and wounded humanist themes deserves better, yet band's like this continue to spit it out with the balls already lobbed off.

Some groups can meld genres blatantly, and it works, like Mastodon, whilst others need to pick one or two grooves and explore them organically, allowing the riffs, rhythms and melodies to ride out and compliment each other as needed. What's abrasive about this record is not abrasive in an intentional way. No, here tension exists sheerly from the warring forces of the band's collective mind as it struggles to discover who it is whilst clinging to prefabricated ideas of who it should be. Lie a moody teenager yearning to fit in, yet instead of fighting the powers that be, giving in to them and interpreting what it thinks is “cool” into something that is the complete opposite.