In Cauda Venenum - G.O.H.E. (2020)

In Cauda Venenum is a French group that focuses heavily on creating swollen soundscapes which incorporate black metal, post-black leanings, and a cello into something sweeping and dramatic, with the intention that the listeners grow ever immersed and lost in its reveries of harsh but alluring sound. The last time I encountered them was their rendition of Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks piece "Laura Palmer's Theme" which they put out on a 3-way split some years ago, but the structure to this new album G.O.H.E. much resembles their s/t debut from 2015, with two tracks clocking in at over 21 minutes length. This is a LOT of space to fill with something captivating, and while this sophomore does have a few moments of elevation, I'm not sure the bulk of the material really ekes out its existence in the most memorable of manners.

It's certainly a classy vibe with the chords thundering forth and the cello strings gliding above them, or the pianos, and they do a fantastic job of making that all feel so natural within the parameters of their style. Where I felt it fell behind was in the riffing selection...these all flow well enough, but they just never stick individually, so it's the sort of album which I could only appreciate on an atmospheric level. The drums do shift things up, and there are some nice segues here which balance off the instruments and seem to set up the next wall of sound for the post-black riffage, but the music never seems to climax quite enough with its choice in melodies, so it always seems like it's a swell of incidental music from some modern art film, just enough of a chord change to set a mood but without the visuals you'd see on a screen it doesn't really dazzle that much. The murky rasping vocals are executed well enough, and I believe they are sometimes doubled up which creates this creepy, fulfilling presence, but this also could have benefited from a stronger set of riffs below it.

The two tracks do have plenty of similarities, although the second, "Délivrance" centers more on a doomed, crawling gate and a slightly more interesting riff-set, plus a nice swerve into pure neo-classical terrain which I thought was one of the more heartening points on the whole record. Still, though, both sides feel heavily bloated; without the fascinating twists and turns required to create a compelling narrative structure, I felt like I was just listening to two halves of a very level plain, without any real secrets hidden upon it. Soothing occasionally on the surface level, but without the hypnotizing depths that I need to fix my attention. I dig the esoteric style, and there's nothing wrong with this as sheer mood music, but I'd love to hear them with a more engaging attack, perhaps more ferocity from the black metal influences and higher highlights of grace with the cello and melodies.

Verdict: Indifference [6/10]

https://incdvnnm.bandcamp.com/

Sons of a Wanted Man - Kenoma (2020)

Les Acteurs de l'Ombre must have the market cornered for Euro bands that combine elements of black metal, post-metal and sludge into coherent, unified sounds, and Sons of a Wanted Man is their latest export, a Belgian band which does this seamlessly on their debut full-length Kenoma. In fact, this cross hybridization feels so natural in their hands that I no longer care where one of the genres begins and ends, just that it's all being battered over my head in an emotional, earnest outpouring of snarls, chords, fat bass lines and intense drumming. That's not to say I'm entirely impressed with this record, in fact I was zoning out a number of times due to what I consider excessive song lengths with a lot of predictable patterns, but Kenoma is a respectable package at least.

I can't stress enough how much the element of surprise is important to me when I'm hearing a new record, perhaps not as much in very traditional metal styles, but certainly when I've got a band in a newer medium that gels as well as this one. To that extent, I found a lot of the chord progressions throughout this fairly familiar, though they're heavily saturated with a full bodied distortion, and a ton of searing passion in the rasped, black metallic vocals. Even where the band will just let the guitars trudge along by themselves, like in the depths of the title track, it becomes a little too redundant, expected and patience-draining. That's not to say these choices are bad, but there's just so little to actually snag my ear as I'm passing through. In a lot of cases, the band will shift between these mid-paced, driving chord sections redolent of stuff like Katatonia, and blasted black metal mode, but otherwise the mood of the sequences doesn't really change around so much with the tempos, it's all a wearying gray that, like many shoegaze or blackgaze artists, attempts to compensate with a wall of force in the guitars and beats, and that doesn't always translate into memorable compositions, though it's certainly pleasant and consistent.

Now, occasionally they'll throw something over the top, some slight touch of dissonance created in the churning chords or the melodic shadows cast by the upper strings, and that creates immersion for me, but so many of the bottom end rhythm riffs on this record are just bleak and void of interest, such as the chugging at the heart of "Serpentine", where the same note is beaten to death (fortunately this is one of the shorter pieces). In other times, you'll get just a little bit of the unexpected like the drifty, dreamy vocals in "Canine Devotion", and that definitely helps to flesh out the experience. If you're seeking out something like a Slowdive or Hum balanced against black and sludge, I think you could do far worse than Sons of a Wanted Man. The murky production of the guitars is quite honest and raw, the lyrics have a nice philosophical, pleading style akin to intellectual hardcore, and the cover art and packaging is tremendous. Musically, it's solid, especially if you don't mind some familiarity with the basic building blocks, but I can tell from this that there's plenty of potential territory to grow into in terms of including more off-the-beaten-path melodic riffs or chords, or atmospheric passes that have a little more hypnotic effect that is crucial for this mix.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

https://soawm.bandcamp.com/

Cult of Luna - Eternal Kingdom (2008)

After a bit of a misstep with Somewhere Along the Highway, I was hesitant to pick up Eternal Kingdom.  In fact, it had already been out for several months before I procured a copy of it, which was a poor decision on my part, because Eternal Kingdom is damn good. Unlike Somewhere Along the Highway, Eternal Kingdom starts on with an engaging riff and does not take long to get moving. Unlike previous Cult of Luna releases in which it takes minutes to hear vocals, “Owlwood” is full of their usual Neurosis-lite hardcore screams.  

“Owlwood” hits like any Cult of Luna song; they vary the riffs and tempo enough to keep things interesting while making sure the heavy moments are oppressive and bleak and the slower moments offer moments of pause and reflection.  The best quality of Cult of Luna is their ability to offer slower and softer passage that do not become boring, and this quality is on full display in the opener. The melody is constantly evolving and staying interesting, even during the slower portions of the song, of which there are a few. 

The second track is “Eternal Kingdom,” which opens with a brooding riff the guitar and bass share until eventually diverging into an occasionally dissonant harmony.  If any track can be called repetitive on the album, this is it, but despite not varying the tempo or the melody throughout the first 100 seconds of the song, the vocals carry it along nicely until the song transforms into something a bit more frantic.  In fact, the tempo changes are frequent after the opening segment of the song, and the fast/slow/fast dynamic manages to keep things interesting.

The third song, “Ghost Trail,” is one of the standout tracks on the album.  At almost 12 minutes long, “Ghost Trail” comprises about a fifth of the album’s run time, and it takes advantage of every second of its run time.  Unlike “Eternal Kingdom,” which works largely based on the band’s ability to go from heavy to soft and loud to slow, “Ghost Trail’ is like a series of two long crescendos, peaking a bit after six minutes in and then again at the end.  It is the type of song that leaves you exhausted, and it’s nice Cult of Luna provides a brief instrumental interlude before getting back to the heavier stuff with “Mire Deep.”  

Though the first half of the album feels a bit stronger, the second half, which I count as “Mire Deep” and everything after it, does not lose much momentum either.  They combine the elements that make “Ghost Trail” such a success a second time in “Curse,” which is only about half the length of “Ghost Trail” but may be the heaviest and most frenetic song on the album. The album closer, “Following Betulas,” is also excellent and closes with synthesized horns and militaristic drumming, which is just weird enough to be a perfect fit.

Eternal Kingdom is an album I wish I could apologize to for not trusting it to be good.  I was underwhelmed by Somewhere Along the Highway, but Eternal Kingdom feels like the final draft of something that was rushed out the door in Somewhere Along the Highway; it is polished, varied, and interesting.  While it may not be Cult of Luna’s finest hour, fans of the genre have no excuse not to pick this one up.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://cultofluna.com

Cult of Luna - Somewhere Along the Highway (2006)

Cult of Luna had been building towards something great since their first two albums, which weren’t amazing but were better than a lot of the post-metal bands that get trotted out as exemplars of the genre.  All of their good ideas finally came together in Salvation, and, in a way, the brilliance of that album set up their failure in Somewhere Along the Highway.  

While Salvation was an excellent amalgam of the hardcore leanings of the first two albums and the brooding intensity of Neurosis, Somewhere Along the Highway just feels like a perfunctory follow up to a great album.  It has a lot of the elements that made their earlier work so successful, but it falls flat and feels unpolished.  It’s missing the je ne sais quoi that separates great albums from the rest, but, despite all of my harsh words here, it’s not offensively bad; it’s just mediocre.  

Somewhere Along the Highway frequently commits the unforgivable sin, something that is almost endemic to the genre (and really shouldn’t be); it is boring.  Cult of Luna again creates long, far-reaching ambient soundscapes interspersed with moments of heaviness, but the two aspects of the music don’t blend or exist on any type of continuum as they did on previous albums; the heavier passages don’t interact well with the slower sections, and the whole album feels incoherent and wasteful as a result.  Somewhere Along the Highway doesn’t really get going until well into “Finland,” the second track, and when it does finally build up momentum, it’s too little too late.  

There are some good bits here, even if it does not work as a coherent album as well as it should.  “And With Her Came the Birds,” for instance, is a slower track with a southern bent that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Cobalt or Murder by Death album.  It features twangy guitar and low pitched, almost whispered clean vocals.  It’s not what I want to listen to when I reach for a Cult of Luna album, but it’s moody and well done, as is a good portion of the following song, “Thirtyfour.”

“Thirtyfour” opens with a single, effective riff and builds off of it, as most good Cult of Luna songs do.  This track comes the closest on the album to capturing the magic of previous albums.  The heavy guitars and almost hypnotic drumming coalesce with the more free form passages to provide the perfect example of what this album should have sounded like and perhaps could have sounded like if it had just been given a bit more time for improvement.  Likewise, there are moments of brilliance in “Dark City Dead Man,” the closer.

This is certainly not a bad album, but given the strength of previous releases, it should have been a hell of a lot better.  For the uninitiated, this would be an excellent first Cult of Luna album.  It shows off a glimpse of what makes the band worth listening to, and it can be followed up with The Beyond or Salvation without making Somewhere Along the Highway look insignificant in comparison.

Verdict: Indifference [6.5/10]

http://cultofluna.com/