Review: Conifer “s/t” CD

Be not misled by the fact that this disc contains only four tracks, as the entire ordeal runs not so far from an hour and contains its fair share of content. Massive 23+ minute opener "Troy/Landmammal" exemplifies the band's diversity by starting off with spacey ambient noises swirling about as chorused clean guitars finally start to become recognizable around five minutes in, followed closely by bass and percussion. Just a few minutes later, however, after bringing in a bit of distortion and hinting at a climax of some sort, things shift very quickly, as the rhythm section takes hold and launches into a much jazzier sort of progressive rock vibe (especially the drumming), while the guitars kind of noodle about (again sans distortion) for a few more minutes. Distortion finally surges forth for a brief yet powerful chord progression followed by a spurt of feedback before fucking sick over the top vocal screams break in with a pounding sparse rhythm that eventually picks up into a much doomier and sludgier vein. However, the cool thing is that it's not doomy or sludgy in a typical manner at all, there's a subtle hint of melody in there with scattered bits of noisy lead playing and such, and lots of stuttered rhythms and atypical atmospheres. Plus, nothing sticks around for too long, so there are extended passages of significant repetition, but in the grand scheme of almost 24 minutes the song transforms itself a good four or five times, if not more! "Turning Sand Into Glass" follows at a more "succinct" 10 minutes, opening with dry clean guitars over shuffling ambient sounds resonating in the background, delving into some straightforward heavy rhythms and brutal growled vocal shouts. After a break of bass and pitch-shifted spoken vocals that build back in with some Black Sabbath-esque harmonies and more background noises things start changing up again with more stuttered rhythms and brief fits of repetition as the vocals take a rest and things end up getting looser and noisier towards the end. "Widowmaker" follows at a more normal running time of around six minutes and uses repetitive clean chords over melodic bass and toned down percussion for the first several minutes, as barely audible guitar and bass notes are all that's left by the midway point, which is when things start to roam and more droning guitars swirl around in the depths. "Albuquerque Reprise" ends things off at just under eight minutes with plenty of dissonance and a more direct and in your face opening that gets to the point rather bluntly and lets the shrieking screams shine more than elsewhere, not breaking down to more of an ambient hum until six minutes in or so - which does make for a nice, calm, fluid ending to the record. The sound is really nice on this one, definitely coming across with a live vibe that probably isn't literally so since it's a little crisper and clearer than one would expect from something that was laid down live in the studio. It definitely has a lot of warmth and a lot of gritty texture to it, though. I think the bass could be brought forth a little more to better differentiate itself from the guitars, but all of the tones are solid and the drum performance is fucking excellent - plenty of hard hits and lots of frantic (yet well harnessed) fills. Some of the guitar riffing is a little intentionally sloppy, but that's fairly scarce, so... The layout is quite minimal, combining lots of semi psychedelic patterns with some manipulated photos of trees and such, using almost no text on the outer packaging. The photography on the cover is nice, whereas I think that some of the abstract patterns and such are less interesting or visually pleasing by comparison. No lyrics are included (not that many are employed), and in fact only minimal information is provided in one nicely arranged little area of the booklet. As a whole this is pretty interesting and promising work, I just personally find some of its wandering qualities to be disruptive and somewhat stale compared to the overall diversity and force of their strongest moments. For example, all of the vocal styles are absolutely insane, yet the vast majority of this material is instrumental; the crushing heaviness is excellent and the chords and picking patterns in such moments are quite interesting, but the noisier playing deadens some of that and the constant stylistic shifts, while cool, aren't always linear enough to benefit the songs; etc. By the same token some of the less structured and more experimental playing is also very cool, but at times it feels too random or some of the sounds (such as those opening "Troy/Landmammal") are a little bland in the long run. So... there's a lot of cool stuff happening here, I just think it needs a bit more cohesion to really maximize its impact. Not bad, though.