Well this is a pleasant surprise. An E.P. from a band I have never heard of that hits in all the right heavy places. Backbone from Warsaw have been on hiatus for a couple of years and are bouncing back with a pair of E.P.s Grey Foundations of Stone being the first.
Post Doom? I suppose that is what it could be called. The heavy yet delicately layered sounds that the quartet purvey tread similar waters to the mighty Yob and personal faves Mountaineer. The riffs are huge and all enveloping but the melodies are light and uplifting one moment and tinged with my beloved melancholy the next.
There are waves of Gothic sounds throughout taking inspiration from the more metallic side of the G-thang Paradise Lost etc but also from home pride kings Fields of the Nephillim – these are subtle though and may only pull at the heart strings of an old Goff like myself. Elsewhere the prog and post influences are written large. There are two Piotr’s in the band – Potocki and Kowalczyk respectively and both handle guitar and vocals just to confuse things more. One has a deep killer rasp and the other a soaring clean emotive larynx. The bounce between them creates a wonderful juxtaposition.
The rhythm section of bassist Loki and Michal Kowlaski on skins is the er well backbone as you would expect. They offer up a lot of subtlety amongst the four tracks and show that there is a lot more to their low end than pummelling bombast.
There is no need to go through each track each one of the four holds its own and paints a slightly different picture to the others.
I will give a special shout out to the title and final track of this extended player. It has a dirty groove that reminds me of Porcupine Tree being played by Amebix with Nocturno Culto singing and I swear that is a Cure riff played at the end.
If you like your riffs big and your melodies with a hint of whimsy whilst still feeling they could crush your bits in a vice at the flick of a wrist then Backbone are for you. This spine is mighty fine.
(8/10 Matt Mason)
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