Black Harvest "Mute" CD
[self-released]
Wow, I didn't know what to expect from this one, but I was pleased to be greeted by some impressive and uncommon progressive death/black metal from New York.  With only six tracks it seems like it would be an EP, but that's far from accurate seeing as how the running time hits around 45 minutes.  The band is a trio, but practically this entire EP was performed by one person, and even the fact that drum machines were used doesn't hold back the power of the songwriting at all, which is a great achievement.  The recording does need some work, as the sound is pretty crisp and doesn't go for that raw aesthetic, so the guitar tone definitely has a clinical and unnatural sound to it that doesn't benefit the material at all.  But the mix is well balanced and I think the harsh vocal screams and programmed drums actually sound pretty damn good.  The singing is too flat when it appears (the guy's not the best singer out there, but I've heard worse) and the vocals can lean out front sometimes, but for a self-released effort the sound is okay.  An unfortunate hindrance in the big picture since the songwriting is fucking great, but... it's good enough to demonstrate what the band is capable of.  There's a shitload going on here.  After the straightup melodic black metal mastery of "Lamentation", "Die, Lavinia" opens with some less than intriguing staccato riffs that lead into a few twisted dissonant runs that are very Opeth-esque, and therefore infinitely more interesting to listen to; and "New Year's Day" opens with fingerpicked acoustic guitars and has some choral vocals that almost have a weird Mike Patton kind of thing happening.  This makes up most of the eight-minute track, before the snarling screams creep in with distortion past the five-minute mark, but even this reverts to a smooth lead passage that reinterprets the earlier vocal lines and ends the track excellently.  I'm really not into any of the vocals in this track at all (they're the worst spot of the whole disc), but that solo passage is fucking beautiful.  "Let Us Go" kicks off with faster blasts of death metal runs that still carry that discordant undercurrent, and there are definitely some fucked up picking patterns and chord phrasings that I really dig.  Some of the singing and structuring is almost catchy in this track as well, which also exemplifies some damn fine drum programming, but sadly the singing simply isn't good enough to break through.  It's not so bad that it really destroys the material, but if the guy could nail the singing... I mean, shit... I'm just really blown away by how cool a lot of these riffs are.  There's so much potential here.  I definitely think that the long running times see the band wandering out of place on occasion (this same song, for example, has some weird and slow paced prog metal lead playing that comes out of nowhere), and it's weird, because the out of place riffs are still really cool... they just don't fit, you know?  So these things can hurt the songs in the end, but it's not like there are many passages that are actually inferior... it's a strange occurrence.  There are definitely some faults here, however.  The groovy riffing and pinch harmonics in "Harvest of Souls" are pretty terrible, so thankfully it's the shortest track on the disc, running all over the place from tremolo picking to strangely out of tune chords and impressive dissonant twists in short spurts.  After a couple of minutes of blank space at the end of the disc there's some spoken narration and a largely electronic backing that has a weird sort of boppy Mr. Bungle thing happening, and I don't care for that at all.  It's a pale comparison to the actual songs on the disc and sounds way too hokey and unoriginal to warrant inclusion in my opinion.  The artwork looks pretty nice and I actually like the band photos as well.  They only include lyrics for the first track, but a few of the passages are pretty interesting: "Here, we are the failures: Children who could have been gods.  Our flickering shadows grow ever longer.  Dancing a funeral lament.  Bury us tomorrow.  Bury us down in the dirt..."  This is a fucked up CD.  There's are enough weaknesses and nonsense cluttering things up to warrant both mention and concern about, but there are also some of the best riffs I've heard thus far all year on this fucker.  In a lot of ways I truly, truly want to see this band get signed immediately because I'd kill to hear some of this stuff delivered with a better recording budget.  The band needs to work out some rough spots for sure, but my worry is that they could go one of two ways: They could mature as writers and performers (of which they're already impressive, but the singing needs a lot of work) and deliver some incredible progressive metal material, or they could fart around with more of the wacky junk that seeps in on rare occasion and finds a home in that unlisted track... and it would be an inconceivable shame were they to follow the latter path.  I have to give this the benefit of the doubt with a 7/10 because there are some fucking insane riffs on on here that I absolutely adore, so I'd love to see the band get the right opportunities and make the right decisions with which to better realize their vision.  There's too much talent and potential here to let it go to waste. (7/10)
Running time - 45:00 (approximately), Tracks: 6
[Notable tracks: Lamentation, Die, Lavinia, Tamora]
Black Harvest - http://www.black-harvest.com

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