My English professor at university was very fond of well-written opening lines. For him, the beginning of a story, book or drama had to contain the crux of the piece, introduce the main character(s) or hint at the plot in one way or other. If that was not the case, he was inclined to consider the author a dilettante, someone who didn’t know what they were doing and the work not worthy of his attention. His favourite examples of expertly written beginnings were the opening line of Moby Dick and the prologue to Romeo and Juliet.
Listening to the sonic beauty and the depth of The Tundra is Awake, the opening track to Hexvessel’s new album Polar Veil, I remembered my professor’s favourite criterion of excellence. Although I have not seen it being applied to music, I think it works perfectly in the case at hand. Because The Tundra is Awake gets very deep very fast. There is shocking profundity instead of a light, meaningless intro. Within a few seconds from the first sound being heard, ice-cold, tremolo-picked guitars transport the listener to the desired setting – Earth’s far north. Here, it appears, faced with the rawness of nature, a lot of the things that bother mankind further down on the globe, become meaningless. Which makes it easier to focus on the real issues. The soundscape’s earnestness and precision, paired with the profundity of the lyrics, confronting you with death and the vastness of space already in the first few lines, simultaneously sober you up and calm you down. And instantly you know what this record is about. This is a document of a quest for meaning, inviting the listener to ponder the results found. I was surprised. And intrigued. And hooked. Which, if you think about it, is the most desirable effect the opening of an album could have on a listener.
Written down, a combination of black metal, doom, folk and psychedelia may not sound exactly unheard of. Yet on Polar Veil this mixture has a truly unique ring to it. Sometimes, guitars and cymbals combine to produce a sound as if someone was taking an axe to a row of icicles. In addition to the frightful guitars, the rhythms are often dragging, doomy and grim. But there is also a bit of drug-induced autumnal sun to be heard in passages of folky psych rock where Mat McNerney’s clean, musing vocals and poetic lyrics call The Eagles’ Hotel California to mind – yet another journey from innocence to experience.
If you are new to Hexvessel and want to give one track from the album a listen, make it A Cabin in Montana. This is certainly the album’s most jaw-dropping piece. Feel the fear, the freezing cold and the existential dread in your bones that the guitars induce and move from there to rebellion, liberation and victorious, dizzying heights.
Earlier this year, I also reviewed Plagueboys, the most recent album by another one of Mat McNerney’s long-time projects, Grave Pleasures. I had a difficult start with the album, because I felt that something was missing, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I do know now. Since Hexvessel and Grave Pleasures share one vocalist and one main song writer, and since both albums came out within half a year of each other, I feel that connecting them is justified, despite the bands playing different styles of music.
From my point of view, Plagueboys portrays forms of pathology that have penetrated Western urban cultures, while Polar Veil presents a possible remedy. Most of us probably live in an in-between place. While we know very well that the habits we have developed are unhealthy, most of us can’t or won’t make the move to live a life closer to nature. Yet this is where meaning can be accessed more easily. That’s what Polar Veil is confessing to, and from the very beginning – in the form of most astonishing sounds.
(9/10 Slavica)
Leave a Reply