Blimey! A couple of months ago I reviewed the new high-velocity Norna album and wrote that it might be the heaviest album released this year. Little did I know that its contender was right around the corner. Well here it is: Still´s sophomore album with a barrage of heavy, discordant Post-Metal music.
Three years have passed since their deservedly well-praised first full-length. It was a display of a mature band ejecting intense Post-Metal music of the highest quality. And now they are back with a release that takes the dense, atonal, and furious music in all its crumbling delight many steps further.
On their first album, they had some breathing intermezzos, almost dipping into translucent Post-Rock. Not on this release; they have plugged all the holes - even spaces between the songs. It could have been a mess if it had not been in the hands of musicians that possess full control of the cascades of metal-related music they send in our direction. The drums push forward at an immense speed using the cymbals to sprinkle some sparks over the dense sonics, accompanied by a fast bass laying the foundation for the riffs and sonic avalanches from the guitar and the desperate, furious screamo vocals.
To be honest, some parts are toned down, but those are often eerie and foreboding Darkwave-inspired sounds. Like the opening on the first song, ”Yearn”, which sounds like warning sirens, a premonition of what is to come with distant hits on the bass drum. The music bursts through the Darkwave textures with dense distorted, discordant guitarlines in restraints waiting for the signal to release the full charge. The music swirls heavy and dense and then take a breath before the drums blast full speed ahead followed by a hurried bass and the fuzzy guitar laying out a repetitive atonal melodic pattern void of any harmony - it is wonderfully harsh and jarring. There is a contrapuntal moment when the bass and drums race forward while the dense heavy guitar is somewhat holding back with riveting riffs making an intense part of heavy sludgy music. Then the rhythm section pulls back and the guitar seeps out to a dissonant cello-like Darkwave end reflecting the song opening with the occasional distant bass drums.
There is no reprieve before the juggernaut of the next song, ”Only Time Will Tell” hits you like a hammer with blast beats and fast rumbling bass, while the guitar´s dissonant fuzz swirls around them underlining the hoarse frustrated vocals. The song is fast and undulating with heavy dense riffs, sometimes panning out for a short moment driving the dissonance forward harder. With great effect, the music dissolves into Dark Ambient just to lure you in before the volley of the dissonant guitar of ”Light hits with hefty drumming and furious low-end bass following the undulating melodic theme spewing from the guitar. The raging vocals immerse themselves in the sonics, and the music allows us to breathe but tightens again with feisty speed and sound, the guitar repeating a tremolo pattern before it turns to repeat the dizzying, wavey theme.
”Light” tightens and bows in to a dissonant racing to the end making the listener feel quite on the edge before it plunges into ”Dark” upholding the speed yet changing the mode a bit, but still with the dissonances followed by more distinct deep-end bass. The music pans out with heavy riffs before the guitar once more goes full discordant, followed by the drums’ constantly changing pattern - everything held up by the bass that provides some sanity in the music. The desperate and frustrated vocals are always present. The song is heavy, hard and tumultuous all the way through until it is abruptly challenged and stopped by half a minute of Dark Ambient music that is suddenly drowned out by some hard industrial noise repeating a musical pattern in the short ”Oscillate”.
Then we are ready for more pedal to the metal as we follow the musicians through the three last songs, starting with a screeching guitar opening in ”Life Eclipses Living” and continuing with rich sound effects before a fast rhythm section emerges and the guitar forms a kind of cacophonous musical pattern to embrace the vocals. The music builds further with repetitive patterns where the hoarse vocals fight for attention and bursts of higher-pitched guitar sounds in the noisy layers of the song. It is orchestrated in way that creates a dizzying effect in a good way before it fades out with hard static sounds from screeching guitars pushing the listener into ”Small Mercies Of Falling Apart” that takes the tumultuous sonics and pushes forward with dissonant guitars spreading out over the fast rhythm section. It is raw and comes in waves until it spreads out with dense tremolo riffs supporting the emerging vocals. The sounds shift between elongated and short passages, crumbling forward and at some point lifting the song to race forward dragging the hard rhythm section behind it until they meet and the instruments collapse on each other leaving static sounds to push you into the last song, ”Unresolved”.
You are again shoved into repetitive dissonance without a pause, as the delightfully fast music with high-pitched guitar repeats a hurried melodic pattern. If the first seven songs were hard, despaired and furious, the opening of this one crushes everything before it simmers down to a part with prolonged riffs, bursts of drums, and frustrated vocals singing in the open spaces between the riffs. The sonics dip into some heavy industrial sounds, some noise, and dense sludge metal when it lifts a bit. It seems like each instrument is trying to break away from the slow musical structure they held captive in. They find their way into atmospheric Sludge Metal of the heaviest and most dissonant kind. A higher-pitched guitar emerges from the layers, fast and engaging. The force of the music lifts itself before it throws itself into tumbling dark sound effects that come to an abrupt stop.
So here we are, slipping into the darkness of winter joined by this new impressive album from Still to help us through the dark days and nights. The album reveals itself as an agitated tour de force made by musicians wearing their hearts on their sleeves.
