Sitting at my place of work for a change and rather than staring at the flora and fauna and phalanxes of ants and battalions of birds in my glorified shed at the bottom of my garden, I am in the office staring at a largely empty space, bereft of life, activity, and the buzz of human interaction. It seems Fridays are the new Saturday and Monday’s the new Tuesday. What that means for Thursdays is anyone’s guess, but I would imagine it’ll be subject to tax relief because Thursdays are paying off their local Tory council in two pence coins to be used to crucify the coining machines on Bournemouth pier. Talking of politics, its also good to be sitting here revelling in Tory filth being eradicated and smashed to pieces in the local elections. I’d like to think this is all the work of a reenergised Labour party but it’s probably more to do with tactical voting conflated with a country fed up with scandals, mismanagement, cruelty, and ineptitude delivered by the incumbent government. Politics aside, and to more pressing concerns the new album from Swiss DJenters Herod. The band have form and a decent back catalogue of groove-laden, metallic sharp things that has seen them tread the boards in support of such scene luminaries such as Obituary, Carcass and Napalm Death, this new album appears to be somewhat of a thing/event, anticipated by scenesters and the curious alike.
I will, as I often do, admit that I haven’t heard of Herod before although naming yourself after someone who (according to the bible which is either a guidebook to Christianity or a work of fiction to be viewed as a forerunner to the Harry Potter books) decided the only way to rid 37BC Judea of the infant Jesus was to simply murder every infant in Bethlehem, may say something about the band’s state of mind and is a bold move. Still, there are worse band names out there, I guess. And so, to the music and what to say. So to the music and it’s competent, heavy as a heavy bag laden with bricks and tied down with sacks full of concrete, and it all chugs along nicely, like the confused half brother of Meshuggah. Looking through the accompanying press fluff, it’s Meshuggah and the other bastard children of that scene that seems to pop up with worryingly regularity in terms of genre touchstones. That there seems to be precious other musical comparisons being proffered, should be slightly worrying although I do spy the odd mention of Cult of Luna (nope), Gojira (not really) and Alice in Chains (for the guitar tones only, I’ll give them that).
I mean it’s not bad by any stretch, in fact there are moments of real brightness and invention, none more so than on ‘The Edifice’, album closer ‘The Prophecy’ which features a guest appearance from The Ocean’s vocalist Loïc Rossetti and the middle eastern infused tribalism of ‘The Ode To’ which actually makes a decent fist of fleeing the musicality path well-trodden and desperately wants to be somewhere else. But despite showing a clean pair of heels to the by the numbers syncopated crunching guitars and double bass, the album always seems to revert to type and although the pace varies from song to song, it’s just, well, OK. Is it OK to be just, OK? I guess so. It’s hard to stand out these days I would imagine, this is, as I have mentioned before, a crowded market and to elevate yourself, you really do need to be creating something spectacular, and to be the very best players and be at the very top of your game from a song-writing perspective. And I don’t consider Herod are playing in this ballpark. There is nothing on this album that isn’t OK, decent, passable and at times inventive and enjoyable, it’s just that nothing really stands out either. There is nothing on this album that makes we want to weep, to smash something to dust or kiss the person standing next to me regardless of whether I know then or not. This is simply middle of the road Djent, Meshuggah lite, passable metal that I certainly haven’t minded listening to over the last day or two, but I am in no particular to rush to go back for a return listen.
(6/10 Nick Griffiths)
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