ALBUM REVIEW: Death.Horses.Black. – My Diligence
Forming back in 2015, Brussels-based trio MY DILIGENCE have been an outfit in constant evolution. From their self-titled stoner rock debut, the band have built atop their roots with increasing progressive flair, pulling influence from genres such as psych and post-metal in an attempt to create something that sounds truly monolithic.
That progress reaches its natural apex with the band’s fourth record, Death.Horses.Black.. As the name might imply, what MY DILIGENCE have produced is a record characterised by a daunting gloominess, tackling themes such as political freedoms and devotion to death with equally imposing fury. The result is a record that frequently offers an explosive and grand sonic spectacle, even if it does sometimes become cannibalised by its own ambition.
The first three tracks of the album are those the record takes its name from: Death, Horses, and Black. The opening number is an explosive progressive beast, with vocals nestled into a wall of droning, scratchy guitars, and percussion that bursts out of the soundscape with gunshot violence. Choruses are decorated with ferocious guttural screams, and a blistering instrumental passage sees the track unfold into a glorious and grand second act.
Horses picks up the band’s stoner rock roots and puts them at the forefront of this track, with drawn-out passages that refrain from sheer brutality until the closing moments, rewarding the listener with a brilliant, chunky breakdown climax. Black brings things back into more progressive territory, with its expansive runtime bringing multiple phases that alternate rhythmically and stylistically whilst remaining coherent and cohesive.
It’s from here that the album gets particularly weird, with particularly immense tracks that are weighty in their musical ideas, pushing the boundaries of what MY DILIGENCE even represent. Interlude is a densely layered instrumental piece, composed of a looping guitar line layered over slowly growing abstract soundscapes that screech and fuzz with a disconcerting alien nature. Sacred Anchor, on the other hand, is a moment of brightness at the end of the record with vocals that almost verge on a chanted mantra, swaying with a freewheeling energy.
Sometimes this ambition comes at a cost. With so many ideas brushing up against one another, and track lengths frequently pushing the five-minute mark, it becomes an increasingly difficult album to engage with as a listener, especially with a lack of catchy hooks and refrains to grasp on to. Furthermore, the record is simply a front-loaded experience; after the brilliant opening trilogy of tracks, the album struggles to reach those highs again, leaving the mid-point of this record in particular feeling a little flat and lacking.
Generally however, Death.Horses.Black. is a commendable effort from the band, with the highs of the experience being very, very high. There’s nothing here that is particularly unpleasant to listen to, with even the weaker moments at least demonstrating that MY DILIGENCE are a band with both expansive creativity, and the drive to push that creativity into new and unexpected places. For fans of post-metal and progressive-metal, it’s an album worth checking out at the very least.
Rating: 7/10
Death.Horses.Black. is out now via Listenable Records.
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