Turpentine Valley return with a crushing and versatile release.
With two successful releases under their belt, the expectations are high for this new release. And they do live up to the expectations with varied metal music, balancing between Post-Rock and Post-Metal with a lot of nods to Sludge Metal in the heaviest parts, but to Post-Rock in the translucent parts. The expansive musical ideas with heavy, elongated guitars and the thunderous rhythm section are firmly rooted in Post-Metal. It makes the band stand out in the lush flora of similar bands. It is like a heavier, more distorted answer to Russian Circles’ music.
The instrumental trio Turpentine Valley emerged from the mighty metal scene of Belgium with their highly praised debut Etch in 2019, three years after the formation of the band. The band repeated the success with another versatile sludgy album in 2022. VoS grabbed the chance to review Alder by the neck back then.
Where the previous album had a short acoustic opening track before it delved into the heavy stuff, this album opens with the rising sounds of “Serpent” and a sharp guitar beginning to play upon swift distorted riffs. Heavy bass and hard drumming join at a slow, profound pace that is increasing bit by bit. The bass is the most prominent instrument in this opening part before the music fuses into heavy Sludge Metal with wide riffs and fast rhythms. Above the sonics, a guitar is rising higher and higher. Then the guitar tightens with repetitive riffs, the drums counteract with diverse drumming above the bass. A relief in the dense music comes when a guitar swirls in the sonics, and the music swells in heaviness with long chords.
The next song, “Derf”, has a more upbeat and rapid approach to the metalverse, which is induced in. Drums open this track with the bass and distorted guitar joining in, and it is fast! The riffing music is racing forward until it halts with only the guitar playing a bit discordant and fuzzy before it morphs into higher-pitched chords with the rhythm section lagging behind until it melts together in a wide soundscape with mighty riffs. A higher-pitched tremolo guitar is flying above the distorted sonics and relentless drumming. It spreads out and comes back again with rapid and swirling riffs.
The music they create on each track is extremely variable and nicely constructed. There is a kind of aggressiveness in some of the heavier and rapid parts, but the quiet parts contrasting this make the music whole. It is easy to forget that it is the breathers that make the distorted parts so engaging in this kind of music. This band masters that contrasting feat to perfection with the tight interaction between the three highly skilled musicians. The drums hold the pace and provide depth with a pretty diverse use of all the parts on the kit, the bass is often melodious and profound, adding to the heavines to the music, and then the guitarist can use his virtuosity to sway from tender and delicate chords to hard and distorted riffing.
“Aloof” lives up to its title, being heavy yet translucent, and can serve as a contrast to the opening tracks. The riffs are melodic, floating above the massive rhythm section until it simmers down in the end with a strumming guitar slowly fading away. After this track comes a delicate short track, “Ender”, with clean string plucking as an opener before a stomping rhythm appears and then the music widens out and floating sounds emerge.
After these two tracks comes the engaging track “Pando” with brisk and heavy riffing and rumbling drums upon the throbbing bass. It flies forward until it opens up with elongated chords from the guitar, slowly forming a melodic theme before the music tightens again back to the heavy repetitive riffing as the guitar begins to whirl around the heavy drumming and bass playing. It is like a maelstrom of music rotating around itself. There is a breather with clear strumming, leisurely drumming, and bass before it fuses back into the engaging rhythmic riffing with abrupt spells of higher-pitched sounds, onward to the end, where it gets heavier and heavier in the riffs, ending in slow Doom-induced sonics.
The music continues with “Transparant” that holds translucent sounds from clean guitar, with immense drumming spells and drifing guitar sounds. And a short track, “Stevel”, where a strumming guitar opens immersed in bright sounds and seeping forward into repetitive chugging that gives speed to the music until thunderous drumming appears upon deep bass sonics. The bass guitar opens the next track, “List”, with melodious themes before the drums take the lead, followed by heaving and sinking fuzzy guitar strings. The surge into heavy riffing with brighter guitar sounds flowin the distorted rhythmic sounds is utterly cinematic.
The album ends “Frugaal” that dips strongly into Dark Ambient sonics with resounding drumming. It has the sense of an immersive, slow, reverse crescendo ending the album.
