For no-holds barred riffing, the go-to genre these days has got to be that metal hinterland sludge. From High on Fire to Mastodon and Baroness, and all those more progressive and regressive bands in between, the art of the melodic guitar refrain is carried like a torch for the unwashed and the hairy everywhere. When and where the whole genre crosses the line into metal, rock, doom, stoner and psychedelic music is always up for debate for those of us who find the odd label a useful signpost.
After a series of more esoteric releases since 2008 that threatened to go in all of the above directions and more, A Storm Of Light find themselves much more firmly in the centre ground of the scene with this, their fourth full-length. Previous album, As the Valley of Death Becomes Us, released just two years ago, was a fairly cheerless, almost gothic affair, full of semi-acoustic post-rock dirges and with Josh Graham’s admirable vocal skills firmly to the fore. This time round, in what will no doubt be regarded as a departure for the band, the rhythm section is king.
Graham is well decorated by associations with top flight acts and has clearly learned a thing or two in his time, having dabbled with the likes of Neurosis. He’s not been afraid to flex those influences up to now. But, with three decent albums under his belt, this is a much more focused outing – I would even venture to say it sounds a lot to me like a stab at the big time. Rolling drum patterns, thundering bass lines crashing down in an incitement to bang those heads, or at least nod in an exaggerated manner. Nations to Flames aligns itself much more firmly with the likes of Mastodon or High on Fire and their homages to the lead guitar riff.
But rather than sounding like a desperately commercial shift, Nations to Flames effortless execution of the band’s revolution just about rescues itself in the delivery simply by being a solid slab of well-written hard rock-metal. Josh Graham’s voice – although a bit too hidden under distortion for my liking – sounds more Lane Stanley than ever before and the band lays down a Ministry-style CNBC newsreel-style backdrop just in case you were wondering how far they were prepared to head off in this newly found direction.
Fans of Matt Pike are going to want to take a peak as will others who find the attraction of the up-tempo, stoner doom style all too tempting. Nations to Flames is an incitement to roll up a fat one and enjoy something hard, heavy and distorted.
(6.5/10 Reverend Darkstanley)
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