Seattle is famous for many things including Amazon’s bottomless pit of consumables, plaid shirts, heroin, all things Grunge and Starbucks, purveyor of coffee and bringer of misery to the third world. What it’s probably not as well known for, is being the home of noise/punk/metallers Turian, who return with not just this, their fourth album No Longer Human, but also with an additional band member having added a dedicated vocalist to their ranks in the form of Vern Metztli, and thus swelling their three-piece to a four. But not only has the band grown from a personnel perspective, but it has also grown from a scope and aspirational perspective. It seems to be somewhat of recent trend as last three of four albums I have reviewed, seemed to have deviated with such force and determination from their previous musical paths, that it’s enough to discombobulate, confuse and often fail to engage with their incumbent audience (certainly in the examples I have been privy to). Most seem to completely abandon much of the component parts of what makes these bands interesting and provoking in the first place. I won’t bore you with another three paragraphs of why this is a good/bad idea because that’s raking over old ground, but again, the presence of an about face and a wholehearted and conceited decision to tread completely new ground from a musicality perspective, often seems to deliver surprises, yes, but also dissatisfaction and sarcastic reviews.
Turian’s past three efforts stumbled through the swamps of Grindcore, punk, ultraviolence, and a smidgeon of crust in what constitute decent efforts in a crowded genre. What Turian managed to do, was blend these various genres into an engaging and unique, crunchy bed of guitars and whipcrack drums that sprayed tempo changes around like ejaculate in a teenager’s bedroom and whilst I will resist in making a cheap joke about crust, nevertheless, here was a band that seemed to be on the cusp of something intriguing. As you can guess from the intro, there seems to be a BUT looming menacingly on the horizon like an appointment for a colonoscopy.
‘No Longer Human’ has a lot to it, like a mixed grill, it comes to the table literally falling off the plate in its meaty, greasy and ambitious plans to steal your heart and appetite, hungry, congealed, steaming and unapologetically uncomplicated as Grindcore, fights with D-Beat, 80’s thrash stabbing punk in the throat and wiping its knife on its battle jacket. There is SO much to unpick here and there seems to be a concerted effort to cover as much ground musically as you can on a traditional album format. It works…mostly, with album opening duo of songs ‘Slow Death’ and ‘Snakehead’, veritable speed skaters, rattling through all the genres mentioned above, before failing to execute a quadruple axel on next song ‘Judas Tree’, snapping one leg and splintering a collar bone. Reading between the lines and the various interviews the band have done, ‘Judas Tree’, has been precision tooled to cause maximum damage, misinformation, and carnage, providing the hook on which the entire album is hung. It is a cross between Def Leppard and The Police as if covered by Ion Dissonance. It’s a jarring track, demanding your attention, it’s quite the statement. Having sucker punched you, the album slips back into the bands’ more ‘typical’ modus operandum. Turian still play with conventions like a dog with a bone, ‘Ten Misfortunes’ comes across as a skulking Megadeth styled, creepy ballad before segueing into a crunchy, mid-tempo growler of a song that grooves and moves and is one of the best things on this album.
But as you transition through the album, it continues to weave this way and that, segueing from genre to genre, from style to style, never settling and as result the album feels slightly disjointed and fragmented. There are moments on this album that I really enjoyed, this was mostly in the heavier moments as well as the more poppy interludes that introduce an almost jazz/poppy feel that seems to be ultimately summed up in the song ‘Narcissus’ which is as incongruous (or maybe not) as it is enjoyable in the wider context of the album. No Longer Human, is the sound of a band in in a state of flux. It strikes off into hitherto unexplored corners of the musical galaxy for the band but retains a foot in their old world, which is where many may have issues with this album. It is as if the band haven’t quite had the courage of their convictions and failed to go all in to fully embrace their new direction and instead, have hedged their bets, keeping equal parts new and old in terms of their musicality and approach. Understandable, but it has resulted in an album that is as schizophrenic as it is intriguing. What their fans will make of this album, remains to be seen but I am looking forward to what comes next.
(7/10 Nick Griffiths)
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