ALBUM REVIEW: A Cold Sweat Of Quiet Dread – Myopic & At The Graves

MYOPIC are a three-piece from Washington, D.C. who have been quietly making a name for themselves with their atmospheric brand of post-metal. They released their second, and self-titled, full-length in 2018 on Grimoire Records: an album which shrugged off post-metal’s meandering pace and instilled some speed within the style. AT THE GRAVES, meanwhile, is the autonomous project of Ben Price (drummer of ELAGABALUS, FOEHAMMER), which takes a left-field approach to sludge metal, and has released a string of EPs and three full-lengths dating back to 2009. Their chance encounter led to mutual admiration, and plans for collaboration were eventually precipitated in 2019. A four-piece with three vocalists, MYOPIC & AT THE GRAVES have enmeshed and exerted themselves to produce A Cold Sweat Of Quiet Dread.

You might anticipate from their surreal choice of artwork that MYOPIC & AT THE GRAVES have produced something a little different, and you would be right. A Cold Sweat Of Quiet Dread is familiar yet strange. They remain rooted in an extreme metal style, but draw indiscriminately from blackened, doom and sludge subspecies to produce something utterly chimeric. Opening track Through Veins Of Shared Blood, all speed and shrieking, could give you misgivings; this is an ensemble with a whole palette of techniques at their disposal. Things start to get interesting in Gold Sinews’ second-half: a fever-dream of feedback given life by mechanical rhythms and gothic duet, MYOPIC & AT THE GRAVES begin to bear their teeth.

A Cold Sweat Of Quiet Dread is defined more by its rhythms than its riffs. There is melody here and there, but you’d be hard-pressed to say that any of it was particularly catchy. There are some memorable moments to be sure, fleeting glimpses of the conventional, but this album is mostly about the unfolding of grinding beats and staccato guitar; jarring, angular passages which have been made to fit alongside one another. A Cold Sweat Of Quiet Dread was described as “a challenge” to write. We can believe it; and yet, it definitely works.

Occasionally their sound threatens to lapse into sentimentality, but they have restrained themselves from taking things to a mawkish extreme.  Together, MYOPIC and AT THE GRAVES are unbounded by the limitations of a single style or set of techniques. The limitation which they constantly run up against, though, is the overall production. Justice has been done to each element in the ensemble, but A Cold Sweat Of Quiet Dread sounds disappointingly neutral or ‘flat’. Perhaps this is deliberate, or a compromise borne of circumstances, but we would have liked to hear a bit more drama and nuance in the mix.

A Cold Sweat Of Quiet Dread fulfils its titular promise. Together, MYOPIC and AT THE GRAVES have conspired to create an album of unsettling and cerebral dirge, which is as technically accomplished as it is expressively sincere. Over forty-minutes the ensemble explores the compatibility of their distinct approaches to progressive and extreme music, with excellent results. Hamstrung by a disappointing production, this is a worthwhile and interesting collaboration crying out for a live incarnation.

Rating: 7/10

A Cold Sweat Of Quiet Dread is set for release March 12th via Grimoire Records. 

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