Mare "s/t" CD
[Hydra Head]
Not fucking bad. This Canadian act has a lot going on. Their vocalist used to be in The End, but this is infinitely more creative and forceful than said group (no offense, just a fact). The first track alone rolls through some sleek clean guitars, plodding sludge rhythms, thickly dissonant melodic chords, a few caustic textures, unusual picking patterns and time signatures, and an amazing vocal performance that shifts without flaw from ultra strained (in a good way) screams with an absolutely sick texture to emphatic singing. "They Sent You" then follows by lulling into some unexpected orchestration with crooned singing that falls right in as though it were another instrument... a minute later picking up into a rolling rhythm with plodding bass and some amazing fucking percussive work including some additional drumming that has a tribal sort of bent to it. The bulk of the piece is instrumental, with lots of unusual chord phrasings and discordant arrangements. The brief "Tropics" follows similarly to the opening of "They Sent You", but takes a jazzier direction musically and allows the singing to be a bit more direct. At certain points it's hard not to catch some sort of loose Mike Patton-isms going on, but... barely. It's a loose association that's there and is important to mention, but it's not something to focus on at all. "Palaces" then heads back into the monolithic sludge direction, bordering on a doom laden atmosphere at points, exhibiting another break with clean guitars and jazzy percussion that gets a little more stuttered rhythmically, before later caving into a cacophony of noise that runs into an unlisted track of more choral atmospheres (eventually building back into a wall of crushing distorted chord progressions). Every song runs into the next and flows fairly well, not like one large piece, but definitely like a cohesive body of work. Fucking impressive overall. The production crushes. I have not one complaint. The clarity of the vocals really lets the amazing texture of the screams (it really must be head to be understood) shine, the guitars are heavy as hell, the drums sound perfect, the bass is in there playing its part... And the mix is quite tight, with no vacant space and a level of clarity that fits in nicely with the intricacies of the music. It sounds fucking phenomenal, really. Like I said, I haven't got any gripes. As expected from Hydra Head the layout looks excellent, keeping it fairly stripped down here with lots of blank white space and high contrast outlines of chaotically arranged city architecture filled with photos of colorful nighttime cityscapes. The booklet is massively glossy, with no finish over the color imagery for added effect. Lyrically things get pretty cryptic but seem to stick with personal content, and I could go either way on that. Nothing strikes me all that much, but I'm basically fine with the approach as well. Musically is where this thing excels. It feels a lot longer than it is because it's so diverse and shifts through so many different moods, but that's cool, because it's not boring and really gives you more than you expect to digest. Definitely recommended. If these cats drop a full-length it could possibly be a real fuckin' groundbreaker. (8/10)
Running time - 24:42, Tracks: 5
[Notable tracks: They Sent You, Palaces, and the other two as well...]
Hydra Head Records - http://www.hydrahead.com

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