ALBUM REVIEW: Bleaching Heat – Row Of Ashes
It’s become something of a given that many of the records coming out nowadays draw their ire and frustration directly from the events of the past couple of years, but few have quite captured the sheer suffocating weight of the world as well as ROW OF ASHES’ Bleaching Heat. Of course, that does feel pretty par for the course given the band’s dealings in noisy sludge metal. Bleaching Heat is a work of apocalyptic fury – a record crushing, compelling and cathartic in more or less equal measure.
It’s probably easiest to begin with a few somewhat expected reference points. For starters, there’s a NEUROSIS-esque heft here for sure, with tar-thick bass and guitars smothering all in sight. It’s also a bit more chaotic than that though, often evoking the unhinged intensity of Sacramento noisemakers WILL HAVEN. Top this off with the angular edge of a band like UNSANE and you’re getting pretty close indeed. Obviously there’s some overlap between all of those comparisons, and of course they won’t quite cover everything, but if one were to draw a Venn diagram of the three of them then you’d probably find ROW OF ASHES smack bang in the middle – not far from that excellent AEROSOL JESUS EP from last year for anyone who heard that.
Moving beyond the individual building blocks to the songs themselves, Bleaching Heat provides listeners with eight constructions of imposing and oppressive weight and rage. Its opening run is especially relentless, with Worcester Man, the title track and Jerk all offering next to no respite. Vocals are more spat than sung, and the trio hit with more force than most bands manage with double their membership. Jerk is arguably the strongest of the opening trifecta, its world-ending groove demanding the banged heads of all who listen. Don’t go looking for hope in the lyrics either; this one concludes in abject misery, with vocalist Chris Wilson asking listeners “What if there was never enough? / What if you were never enough?”.
As we venture deeper into the record however, we find ROW OF ASHES dealing in increasingly dynamic fare. Starting with the quieter and cleaner opening of The Wreck And The Mill, this only elevates the record further still. It takes a full two minutes to build, with its inevitable eruption hitting with even nastier and more dissonant force than that which came before. Later, Machining Statutes’ manipulated field recordings provide something of an interlude before the record’s devastating double-headed finale. Rolling through the dynamic and utterly tortured Contraband into the doomy thunder of In Summation, these tracks end Bleaching Heat in impossibly mesmeric agony – a fitting conclusion to a relentlessly gripping half an hour.
It should be fairly obvious by now that Bleaching Heat won’t be for everyone. This is dark, bleak and hard work from start to finish – all of that meant in the best possible way. ROW OF ASHES might never break out of the underground – in fact they probably won’t want to – but when it comes to the many genuinely fascinating bands dealing in all things heavy both here in the UK and beyond, this trio are right up there with the best of them.
Rating: 8/10
Bleaching Heat is set for release on May 6th via Surviving Sounds.
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