Last year, the band Batillus rocked my
core with its shear heaviness. This year, Black Sheep Wall has done
the same. I'm not afraid to say they've even upped the ante. The
lurching minimalist riffage and soul ripping vocals virtually pinned
me to the ground with their gravitas. Guitarists Scott Turner and
Garrett Randall, bassist Brandon Gillichbauer and drummer Jackson
Thompson have redefined the term “crushing” with this release.
No Matter Where It Ends opens
with two tracks, “Agnostic Demon” and “Liminality,” that
literally weigh you down under their heft. The air in the room tin
which hey are played actually increases in density. Technically, that
statement holds true for the entirety of the album. But it's not all
flatten-destroy. On “Black Church”, ever so briefly, the clouds
part to reveal sunlight and blue skies before they are soon swallowed
again by a darkness ever more malicious. A noisy voicemail “song”
serves as a brief respite before the monolith rises again and rolls
the sludgy doom machine at an ever slower and torturous pace wherein
every riff explodes with a white hot fury, every note is like a Hulk
smash the eardrum.
“Cognitive Dissonance” is a track I
would usually skip because I'm not much for “noise” (despite my
blog's name) but the visual it conjured was compelling. It went like
this. You, the “subject” are in an isolation chamber. The sounds
are all you know. As the ominous feeling grows, more strange noises
filter into your existence. Disorientation and panic become the norm.
You world explodes with sound as you are propelled towards and unseen
destination. The throbbing “countdown” seems unbearable.
Suddenly, you, the “subject” find yourself standing on a sidewalk
beside a busy LA street. Someone asks for a lighter. And just as you
start to get your bearings in this new and strange environment, the
sound once again envelopes you in darkness and you recede from that
world. Pretty heavy stuff.
The vocal bellows prevalent on the
album may lack some dynamics but this just serves to illustrate the
mercilessness of their delivery. They cannot be swayed by petty
emotions. Not that there isn't any emotion here. Hate, disgust and
contempt are emotions too. If that's what you are looking for, NMWIE
is seemingly MADE of those feelings.
I get a machine vibe from the album. I
guess in a sense that the things that would stand in the way of a
human bent on destruction (weak flesh) have no effect on BSW. Nothing
is left in the wake of the crushing, robotic, militarism that is the
mighty riffs wrought forth. Overall, the tone matches the sonic
resonance of an imploding dwarf star. The star implodes or course
because it's cowering in fear of Trae Malone's galaxy shaking vocals.
NMWIE is not an album for the faint of heart or the weak
willed. It's a battle of endurance. Just how much heavy can you take?
The key is to embrace it. Become the might. Let it encompass your
being and take you to places few bands can.
No Matter Where It Ends is
available internationally from
Season of Mist now and is due for a
June release in North America.
