Some bold claims I read in the info sheet for the album at hand. Bold, even for info sheets. Lux, the fourth full-length by In the Company of Serpents is “one of the most impressive Doom/Sludge Metal albums ever recorded” it says. And here I am never having even heard of the band! Nor is that the end of superlatives. The music, I learn, “is so intense, it mimics the gravitational pull of a black hole.” That’s pretty intense! Let’s see if there is some truth behind that kind of the praise.
In the Company of Serpents are a three-piece from Denver, Colorado, active in the Sludge/Doom/Stoner corner of metal since 2011. Lux (Latin for “light”) is their fourth full-length. The album was originally self-released in 2020 in limited edition and despite of that manged to gain quite some attention. Apart from ending up on a few best-album-of-the-year lists, it was noticed by new Dutch label Petrichor who decided to offer the band a chance to release Lux worldwide on CD and LP.
The album’s eight tracks, summing up to a playtime of slightly over 44 minutes, contain surprisingly diverse music full of character. Lux frequently deviates from the established Stoner/Sludge/Doom template, but it does not throw it entirely overboard. Instead, the earthy goodness and steadfastness of heavy guitar riffs and bass are paired with quieter moments and contemplative elements. The result is an exceptionally satisfying listening experience. The icing on the cake, the thing that really adds appeal to the band’s compositions, is some local colour. Sonic allusions to the film scores of Western movies evoke pictures seen in these movies – vast, empty landscapes, harsh living conditions and lonely individuals – placing In the Company of Serpents and their music unmistakably in the Western part of the United States.
The expertly crafted interplay of heavy and contemplative elements can already be heard in the opener The Fool’s Journey, but it really shines in the middle part of the album which has my three favourite tracks, Daybreak, The Chasm at the Mouth of the All and Lightchild, lined up one after the other. In the tunes of the instrumental Daybreak, played out on acoustic guitar and violin, you can hear the sun coming up above a vast stretch of land. This sunrise made of sound is followed by The Chasm at the Mouth of the All, where singer (and guitarist) Grant Netzorg repeatedly shifts from a deep, dark whisper a la Leonard Cohen to hoarse growling. The music follows suit, changing from a meditative flow to grim explosiveness. Lightchild completes my personal trilogy of favourites, featuring tremolo picked guitars atop a sludge/stoner background. Crazy good!
The track titles roughly list the stages of a journey, a journey of an esoteric, philosophical nature. In the Company of Serpents join a long line of philosophers, alchemists and occultists speculating on the nature of the “prima materia”, or “first matter”. According to the band’s bandcamp page the album was composed with three analogies in mind: All is sound, all is mind, and all is light.
Lux by In the Company of Serpents is an enjoyable and satisfying listen, well composed and thought trough. Whether it is one of the “most impressive Doom/Sludge Metal albums ever recorded” – judge for yourself, Sludge/Doom/Stoner fans. Regarding the claim that its intensity “mimics the gravitational pull of a black hole” – that might well be the case, since no one knows what that feels or looks like. It might well feel like this.
(8/10 Slavica)
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