ALBUM REVIEW: Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm! – Vile Creature
For the last decade or more, doom has been the battle-jacket clad poster child of the extreme metal scene. A pantheon of bands worship at the altar of low and slow, so inextricably linked into the fabric of extreme music that whole festival line-ups are dedicated to doom. But things are starting to get a little stagnant in the swamp. It’s becoming a running joke that all a band has to do is slow down blues riffs, throw a shit tonne of fuzz at them, and plaster on a name with the word bong/wizard/witch/goat in it in order for people to take notice. Convenient, then, that acts like VILE CREATURE are taking the rudiments, the alchemical footprint of doom, and crafting something entirely new from that ferric framework.
The duo’s latest release Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm!, as sprawling of title as it is of sonic ambitions, is a Luciferian torchbearer of what can be achieved by sloughing of the constraints of genre and the shackles of expectation.
Harbinger Of Nothing is an instant acidic spray of drummer/vocalist Vic’s throat-ruining shrieks atop a lumbering, churning riff. The track moves, a growling wall of fuzz pierced with lances of feedback, slowly mutating, adding strident chugs and guitarist/vocalist KW’s hideous bellows and stabbing, jarring atonality. It’s unhurried and unstoppable, passing through a grinding key change washed clean by metallic cymbals before breaking from the confines of ‘heavy’ entirely and opening into a swelling savanna of cathartic melody and effects-drenched whispers. Layers build and wane tidally, balancing density with blank space, reintroducing the main quaking riff amid a flurry of thumping tom fills before uniting for a final furious straight line drive.
When The Path Is Unclear follows with ethereal percussion, meditative like singing bowls, before a creeping riff snakes its tendrils into view. Oppressive yet distant, joint vocal layers meet through the tracks echoing, somber waltz before dropping into commanding spoken word, speaking as one voice. Toms descend amidst ringing tremolo and trembling cymbals, devoured by a rumbling wall of fuzz that gives birth to a slow, glowering riff. Stuttering kicks heft the leaden pace forwards, swinging into a savage, irresistible groove before slowing and clattering to a close.
That VILE CREATURE include a message telling you that you have reached the end of the record’s ‘Side A’ and to switch over not only speaks to the duo’s intended format for the release, but also a wryness and self-awareness, a conviction to do things ‘their way’. The remaining three tracks on the record dip below the eight minute mark, something largely heard of amid the sprawling long-form of doom influenced metal.
You who Has Never Slept pounds with huge, adrenaline rousing drums, feedback rising like a fist held aloft in defiance amid bellowing vocals. Suddenly cutting into a looping riff that starts to bound with explosive energy, it snarls and gallops with atavistic intensity, opening out into a mid-paced crush, with the prescient vocals seeming to encapsulate the mood of the time the album is released at perfectly; “we will not stand idly by/we will not be bystanders.”
Closing with the one/two of Glory! Glory! and Apathy Took Helm! is VILE CREATURE at their most ambitious. The former, including Laurel Minnes [MINUSCULE!] and choir, is heavenly and blissful, punctuated by twanging strums of guitar and fragile piano notes, organ drones rising and falling away. Lilting, wearied, and beautiful, it is a balm, cinematic in scope and execution. Apathy Took Helm! is its sinister twin, bliss seen through a black mirror. Crushing, roiling riffs proceed at a processional pace, trapping snatches of choral vocals in claustrophobic henges of guitar and drums. It’s a titanic struggle, a battle, high drama, fading out slowly as layer after layer is stripped away in exhaustion until only ethereal voices remain, and then nothing.
Everything about Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm! has been considered and constructed, building towards a singular vision of a challenging record that sits both inside and outside a wealth of genres and influences. Nothing is extraneous, not a moment is wasted. Broad of scope, vast of riff, this is the sound of a band reaching their zenith, and surely one of the most vibrant and vital releases of the year. Glorious.
Rating: 9/10
Glory, Glory! Apathy Took Helm! is set for release on June 19th via Prosthetic Records.
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