TAINT
Secrets and Lies
(Candlelight)

RIP KC
Spinguolf
(Alone / Influx)

CLERIC
Cumberbund
(Sound Devastation)

ZODIAK
Sermons
(Translation Loss)

ACHENAR
All Will Change
(Earthen)

HELRUNAR
Baldr Ok Iss 

(Lupus Lounge)

YOG
Years of Nowhere

(Get a Life!)

MORE REVIEWS

This is what I am talking about when I say that being influenced doesn’t mean you have to lose your soul. Or your identity. Or your personality.  Those who read the Yog review will get the other side of the coin here.  Cleric is a band that’s taken more than a couple of lessons from the early Dillinger Escape Plan releases, but that has wisely and boldly taken the risk of mixing that with other less straight and even bolder sounding experimentations. To put it all in perspective; Cumberbund is an ambitious two-song twenty-five minute affair, and in that time and those songs, Cleric covers more bases than most bands in a lifetime.

True, these two songs (“Cumberbund” and “The Tower”) could be sliced in about ten shorties each, but that would make for a fragmented record and would give the listener the idea that Cleric is a band without a realistic idea of self. Pasting these into massive tracks makes much more sense and makes for a more gratifying and memorable experience. The title track for instance is astounding; Cleric concentrates into one thing at a time, so when they pummel the math metal they do so solidly and confidently. When they drone that’s all they do. They aren’t about distractions, Cleric is about targeted execution.

To my surprise Cleric hails from Dayton, OH. Since Cumberbund is seeing daylights via the UK’s awesome Sound Devastation I was under the erroneous impression that the band too hailed from Europe. Unafraid to shatter conceptions, these Ohio quartet starts the second half in full drone/ambient/experimental mode. I wonder if they play this one live; for minutes on end it sounds as if we are stuck in an elevator, then it sounds like someone is welding something, then finally, almost ten minutes into it, we can hear some instrumentation. Then the drums sort of dilute themselves with more noise, a blast here and there, quiet passages and what sounds like ideas for a purely experimental band. These guys are talented, and their experimentations are quite bold, I just wish not only one half of this two-song recording was about the rock.

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