Few bands manage to match their chosen moniker
with the music they play with such precision and accuracy as Connecticut
three-piece Sea of Bones - a band whose name more than adequately describes the
desolate, laid-to-waste atmospherics that is as suggestive of a great
pestilence as it is of evoking visions of the remnants of a centuries old
hecatomb. The band has also managed to release an album that rivals the
malignant, misanthropic sludge/doom of Fister’s ‘Gemini’, an album that until
this point was unmatched in terms of downtuned, acerbic sludgery in 2013. At
six tracks and a runtime of over ninety minutes Sea of Bones’ ‘The Earth Wants
Us Dead’ is a harrowing journey that tests the listener’s propensity for
enduring prolonged exposure to seismic, gut-wrenching riffs, tortured vocals,
and atmospheric blight on a grand scale.
The potent album opener “The Stone the Slave
and the Architect” recalls the earth-quaking rumble found on Conan’s ‘Monnos’,
and it relentlessly heaves and struggles under its own weight for nearly nine
minutes. While ‘The Earth Wants Us Dead’ is, at its basest level, an exercise
in monolithic, slow-motion drudgery, most of the tunes are embellished with
enough subtle tempo changes and ambient textures to keep the album moving,
albeit it at a glacial pace. “Failure of Light” is the best example of how the
band deftly manages to include spacier moments into their uncompromising aural
battery, particularly with the song’s intro. Despite the trippy calm, it
doesn’t take long for “Failure of Light” to devolve into another writhing,
unsettled beast of a track. Following in a similar vein to “Failure of Light”
is the album standout “The Bridge”. Distant drums, calm, undulating noise, and
clean guitar slowly build into what is one of the finest tracks on the album.
After a four minute smolder, “The Bridge” launches into a mid-paced chug that
is reminiscent of Neurosis’ “Through Silver in Blood”. If ‘The Earth Wants Us
Dead’ gets released as a CD it’s going to be a two disc set, which leads to the
closing title-track—an album in itself due to its forty minute runtime. As the
entirety of ‘The Earth Wants Us Dead’ progresses so does the inclusion of
ambient noise, a trend that peaks and ultimately conquers with the eponymous
album closer—an instrumental tune wrought with a tension that falls somewhere
between serenity and escalating dread.
Sea of Bones have released one of the ugliest
sludge/doom albums of the year, not an easy feat considering some of the band’s
competition from the likes of both Fister and In the Company of Serpents.
Despite the album’s ugliness there are still fleeting moments of calm, though
they are inevitably engulfed by heaving waves of distortion. If it wasn’t for
the group’s deft handling of ethereal sounds and ambient textures, ‘The Earth
Wants Us Dead’ could run the risk of falling prey to gratuitous, mind-numbing
repetition. Instead, the band has crafted a subtly dynamic album that pays off
in the long run. Fans of Neurosis, Conan, Yob, and even Gravecode Nebula should
appreciate Sea of Bones’ brand of atmospheric sludge.
Words: Steve Miller
No comments:
Post a Comment