On their first full
length album in more than a decade, the criminally unknown English
duo are back with an unrivalled passion for underground metal. Their super good 2020 extended play signalled that the boys were done with what seemed
to be some sort of hiatus and this was good news. This band is like this classic English ale
that’s kept secret and only exists because their creators love
their craft so much. Nothing else matters.
Each of their albums are quite different from
each other, from the stoner doom influences of their debut to the
more pastoral black metal sound of Battle Staffs in the Mushroom
Woods, they’ve been releasing interesting stuff since the start.
Summoning the Gatekeepers is no exception. In fact, I see it as a
culmination of their influences or at the very least, it was a
logical step for them to take. It's a stroll in the forest and never a walk in the park with them.
What we have here is a condensed, tight and
upfront epic black metal album. It might be the album where they’re
the best at mixing the many elements composing their English
breakfast. Sure, there’s still some hints of crust, some hints of
English doom but like in a good homemade bread, you will not think
it’s too salty even if there’s the right amount of salt in the
recipe. Their formula works because the recipe has been tested and edited many times.
From the acoustic
guitars of the evocative “Twisted Tree”, the longest track of the
record to the crackling of fire and the storm ambiance, there’s
some English epicness in their sound but it's never too much or cheesy, it's kept minimal. They’re also able to season their
late Darkthrone black metal with post punk (see the middle section of
“Ragged Brothers”) but for the most part, it’s a pretty even
affair. It’s a relatively midpaced record and there’s not
a lot of tempo variations, at least not super jarring ones that made
me scream “damn they sped things up!”. It’s made up of slow,
heavy riffs with a nice back end like the lovely crusty bass of “Ashes”
for example. it’s meat and potatoes metal but with some good
butter and herbs, a recipe you can find in medieval cookbooks luckily
preserved in the untouched cellar of an English pub.
The
raspy vocals, the way the guitar parts are written and the honest,
highly rustic lyrical hemes are all things speaking to me. It’s
a record worth your time if you value the simplest things in life and
prefer your beer without anything fancy in it.
Bandcamp
No comments:
Post a Comment