ALBUM REVIEW: nature morte – Big|Brave
BIG|BRAVE feel like a wild animal; they’re beautiful and dangerous at the same time. The music feels rough, aggressive and authentically unpredictable. Sweet swells and gravelly drones play out against the raw and potent vocals. The grating of peaking, oscillating notes crying out like some lost oceanic titan makes their new album nature morte feel ferociously alive.
Utterly overwhelming and oppressively dense from the off, from carvers, farriers and knaves the haunting vocals and crunching, waiting guitars thunk and plod to a naturalistic rhythm that sets the scene and atmosphere for the record. It’s worth noting that BIG|BRAVE play with time pretty effectively. While half the tracks run past the nine-minute mark, they’re definitely journeys to be along for the ride on. the one who bornes a weary load feels like being circled by a hungry wolf. The stabs and lunges that come and go intermittently keep you on your toes, while the lulling moments never feel like there’s rest, only time bided.
Melancholy resides at the heart of my hope renders me a fool. Its ambient droning feels appropriate after the onslaught of the first half, this shorter running track feeling like the eye of the storm as you witness the nature of what’s around you before being plunged back into the tempest. The true quiet contemplation at its end is like coming up for air, appreciating the clean guitars as they usher you back to bassline to begin again the journey onwards.
The latter half does ease you in a little more gently, although the subject matter of the fable of subjugation may make you feel a little wary of exactly why you feel so at ease with it. Gentle tinkling bells and soft vocals sit up front with the cracking bloom of the occasional chord. It’s the suggestion of darker, heavier instrumentation that lurks just behind the surface that has you both leaning in in anticipation and closing your eyes in slight anxiety. It’s only when the drums break free and set the beat that things are allowed to overwhelm you once more, by which point you’re already fully invested and welcome the sensory overload.
nature morte also feels like an interpretation of Grimms tales, a sonic impression of fairy and cautionary tales that relies less on narrative than it does an emotional captivation. From the fable of subjugation to a parable of the trusting, there’s a massive emphasis on day-to-day sounds that stick with you long after the bending, maddening guitars and the wild, coarse vocals have quieted. The scrape of metal, the tiny sounds of things being moved light up the imagination. All these details add to the dread and despair once all elements come together to really overwhelm.
Thankfully the closing bookend of the record, the ten swords, gives you respite from the huge ferocity of the majority of the album, dealing with the heavy topics in a much gentler fashion. While it’s by no means a tamed sound, its gentler approach shows the respect of a wild thing that recognises you and the time you’ve spent with it. The space that BIG|BRAVE occupy is absolutely their own, captivating the listener absolutely with mountainous scope and monstrous beauty. The huge doomscapes, cathartic distortion and raw vocals are immensely powerful, and nature morte is a thoroughly impressive record as a result.
Rating: 8/10
nature morte is set for release on February 24th via Thrill Jockey Records.
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