ALBUM REVIEW: A Theft – Still
There must be something horrible in the water in Hull. Having already birthed one of the most harrowing and extreme albums of 2024 in the form of MASTIFF’s Deprecipice, the East Yorkshire town has now spewed forth post-black metal trio STILL and their sophomore offering of pure sonic grief, A Theft.
A droning cello drenched in effects lures the listener in like an apparition in the icy morning mist. Then as opener Yearn kicks in properly you’re sucked into an icy, inescapable vortex of raging blast beats, angular, dissonant arpeggios and tortured bellows. This first track lays out their modus operandi for the harrowing 35 minutes which follows across the album’s eight tracks.
The haunting cello refrain returns at the start of Only Time Will Tell, and will become a motif that ties most of these songs together along with the swirling arpeggios and frantic drum patterns. There’s no danger of this blueprint becoming stale or overplayed though. STILL have done something impressive in the way that they have drawn from a relatively narrow pallet of black metal, post-hardcore, sludge and powerviolence to create a unified piece of art that still has many refreshing ideas on display.
As a piece of art, it is at times challenging and uncomfortable, as great art often is. The way they build tension, foreboding and an almost unbearable sense of claustrophobia is nothing short of impressive. This is none more apparent than on the album’s terrifying centrepiece, Light, followed by Dark. The only two songs not to feature the cello to separate them, they are presented as a ten minute study of grief and trauma. This is followed by a visceral outpouring of rage in the form of Oscillate, which is just over a minute of piercing noise, akin to the likes of THE BODY or FULL OF HELL.
Bringing a real emotional weight to the album is the fact that during the writing of A Theft, guitarist and co-vocalist Fraser Briggs suffered the sudden and tragic loss of his father. Every ounce of those feelings of loss, pain, grief and anger have been poured into the writing of these songs and the performance on record, while his bandmates Jack Green (drums, vocals) and Adam Williams (bass) shoulder the weight of that burden alongside him. This is especially true on the grief stricken din of Life Eclipses Living, which introduces a slower, doomier pace, with Green still hammering out a thunderous double bass pattern with his feet, while the snares, bassline and guitar lines slow the overall feel to that of a funeral procession.
If the subject matter and songwriting wasn’t heavy enough, producer extraordinaire Joe Clayton, guitarist in PIJN and LEECHED and chief engineer at Manchester’s NO Studio has done a masterful job at capturing the suffocating intensity of the performances on display. On Small Mercies Of Falling Apart for example, the layers of dissonance, screams and earth shattering percussion threaten to build to the point they may crumble, but Clayton manages to hold everything together with a crisp and detailed mix. He obviously has faith in these Hullians too, as they’re the first band other than his own brainchild PIJN to release an album on his new imprint Floodlit Recordings.
Closing the album is the aptly titled Unresolved which builds around a series of ear-piercing three note arpeggios that repeat over a barrage of blastbeats but never seem to resolve, instead building tension to near breaking point. This eventually gives way to passages of crushing post-metal, as single notes of downtuned, distorted guitar ring out, each one hitting like a sledgehammer to the head.
A Theft is certainly not for the casual listener, but for those who want their music to challenge them and to reflect the darker and more painful realities of life and death, it is certainly going to turn a few heads.
Rating: 9/10
A Theft is set for release on November 15th via Floodlit Recordings.
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