Shepherd "The Coldest Day" CD
[Exile on Mainstream]
Holy shit, this is my first exposure to this killer German act, and sadly this is their last record as they've broken up in the meantime! What you've got here is a massive slab of all out sludgy mastery, blending 70's styled "stoner rock" with plodding doom and little bits and pieces of hardcore/punk aesthetics, definitely in the vein of Black Sabbath meets The Obsessed meets newer acts like Goatsnake. The one and only Wino even lends a hand as guest guitarist on three tracks, going so far as to handle the vocals in one of 'em. I really like this material because the songs aren't always oppressively slow. There are definitely some forcefully slow chord progressions, but there's a lot more energy to the midpaced stuff, so it changes up nicely between slight tempo variations and throws in some chunkier rhythm playing that gets a little bit heavier than average or messes with the aforementioned hardcore/punk undercurrent. Is it original? Well, not really. The vocals definitely sound fairly similar to a number of other bands, but the slight throaty singing is fucking great, so fuck it. And I do think their songwriting is far more creative than average, so while the framework is definitely typical, where they take it adds that extra kick in the ass that makes a huge difference. The songs also range from as little as three minutes to nine or more, so they're able to get a bit more rock 'n' roll involved by maintaining a sense of focus in many of the more concise pieces. "Monday" opens (the first seven tracks are named in order after the days of the week) pretty straightforward and eventually builds into some of the faster and more rocked out moments, "Tuesday" blows into the most blatant hardcore/punk riffs herein right off the bat, "Thursday" is a little slower and brings in some excellent backing vocal harmonies during the chorus, "Saturday" contains an excellent little lead passage with lots of droning notes and dissonant bends, and "Sunday" is the longest and most diverse track with lots of tempo changes and shifts in dynamics - including more of a bass presence at times (not to mention a slick lead vocal contribution from Wino). Closer "Doomsday" is more experimental in nature, layering together distant shouting vocals with lots of thick drones of distorted chords and faintly melodic musical/spoken samples (I believe), eventually building into a concrete riff here and there, but still breaking apart into lots of pulsing feedback and strange layers of muddy melody and distant vocals/samples. There's an unlisted track after about 15 minutes of blank space that's shorter and faster than the others, a little more punk in nature, and I assume it must be a cover, but I can't place it. Good stuff, though! The recording is fucking perfect as well. I think they need to turn the bass up a little since it really doesn't play much of a role other than filling some gaps in the distance (its distorted edge is pretty similar to that of the guitars), but the percussion is totally natural, the vocals are excellent, and the guitar tone dominates the mix with a nicely honed texture that really works well for this style of music. The mix is nice and clear, too. I'm all for it. I'm not wild on the typeface used throughout the booklet but other than that everything looks nice and consistent with some bleak photographs of statues and blurred images of the band performing live. The lyrics are fairly blunt but the messages, while definitely hitting on socio-political commentary, are phrased openly enough to remain desolate statements about the world as a whole: "The world's total domination is the goal of your nation, by distorting our sense of self, Increasing your wealth..." This is a killer CD. Certainly one of the better records I've heard of this nature in awhile. I'd highly recommend this for fans of the genre. I'm stunned that I haven't heard more about this band in the past. (7/10)
Running time - 50:00 (approximately), Tracks: 8
[Notable tracks: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday]
Exile on Mainstream Records - http://www.mainstreamrecords.de

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