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Don’t
judge Scotland’s Snowblood by the song that welcomes you
into their third full-length. Like every other track in
this self-titled release, it is untitled and,
fortunately, unlike every other track in the record, is
a bit of a mess. It is not a total throwaway, but the
balance is more than off. The nascent sounds of a guitar
stem from the post rock camp and hectically move into
more intense territory; passages of static, heavy
angular guitars and screams make up the first half of
the song. That’s the bad part and the hard transition is
obvious. The second half is sludge, Iron Monkey-like
sludge and it’s really good. There, Snowblood get
kicking and the asses they beat get blue.
Sequence is
important though and since you have to wait about seven minutes
to get there, that may just be a bit long for most. The second
untitled song starts off slow too. An association to the post
rock moods could be established. The build up takes its time and
a cello gives the track a profound moodiness that was absent in
the previous track. When the going gets heavy, the heavy gets
going. Snowblood thrash the second part of this sixteen minute
mammoth via some of the most gorgeously layered guitar volume
competition I’ve had the pleasure of listening. I don’t see any
liner notes, but whoever produced this did a masterful job. The
guitars have this vibrancy to them that is just live like an
open wound.
The third
untitled song is stunning. if for the most part lacks vocals,
grunts, growls and lyrics it is because such beauty would only
be uglified by the mundane aspects of the human voice. Guitars
have rarely been as expressive carriers of hope. That’s what to
me this song transmits; a light, a road downhill that winds down
into the garden of Eden. Yeah, the screams make their entrance,
but they do not overcome, nor overwhelm. The moods pick up only
to solemnly recede. Mogwai, my ass.
I am not so
sure Snowblood are a doom sludge band as they are marked in
their Metal Archives page. Their range of expression is
definitely past beyond that and into mellower territory. They
can be as acerbic and intense, but this self-titled shows much
more color. To crash those that doubt, the fourth and last track
(untitled by the way) extends the dynamics and ventures into
what some may tag to be Tool-esque territory. But this is more.
Snowblood up the ante here,. The heaviness of the track grants
it. Skip the first half of the first song and this album is
stellar.
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