I hate to sound like a broken record, but certain things need to be repeated for them to sink in. Here's one; timing is important. Good music is good music regardless of when it comes out, but there are ways to enhance a record, and ways to make sure a record is ignored and/or forgotten about. When you choose to release an album can absolutely make a difference, and it's why I'm apprehensive about this new Atavist record. As I first sit down to listen to it, the sun is shining, the air is warm, and the sounds and smells of summer are coming through my window. That is not a time when I want to hear doom metal. I'm sorry, but music does need to match moods sometimes, and a downer of a record is not the right thing to be releasing when summer is upon us. It just isn't.
The record has more problems to deal with. The opening "Loss" is sixteen minutes long, and spends the first three letting a cello softly play. It's very nice, but it goes on so long I'm already getting bored before the rest of the band kicks into gear. When they do, it's for a short segment of ringing chords and harsh vocals that don't really match the tone the intro was setting up. I get that loss is a tough subject, and grief can feel like a trip through hell, but listening through this block of music is a miserable experience (and not in the way The Gin Blossoms meant back in the 90s).
This is the worst kind of doom, the kind that thinks anything played slowly and for long periods of time is evocative. The band is wrong in that regard. There are no riffs to speak of, merely washes of guitar noise that echo and reverberate, and vocals that are one-note, flat, and oddly emotionless. I don't get pain from the performance at all, with the growls lacking any sense of passion behind them. The entire record has a feeling of a death metal band whose medication has made them groggy. A tremolo-picked guitar riff is boring when it's at full speed, but when there's one in "Struggle" that's half the usual pace, it sounds more like a boring practice exercise than an artistic element put into a song.
The other issue is that the vocals completely obscure the lyrics. If this album is really about the cycle of emotions that comes in the face of loss, they don't convey that whatsoever. I can't understand a single word being growled, so I have no idea if there is any self-realisation in the so-named track or not. Everything blends together, and we don't even have words to point us in the right direction. It's entirely a mess.
Now, I have to ask myself whether or not this record would be better if I heard it in October, as the skies are once again getting grey and cold. The answer is simply no, this record will be intolerable then as well, but it's made even worse by its unfortunate release date. Whatever patience I might have had to give the record more of a chance was erased by the fact that the weather is beautiful, and my mood is better than usual. I have no interest in intentionally bringing myself down by listening to a depressing doom album. I hope you don't either, so it will be easy to steer clear of this, at least until a more fitting time.
No comments:
Post a Comment