ALBUM REVIEW: Shovel – Shovel
Manifesting themselves from the murky, muddy waters of sludge and forging their sound in the urban sprawl of Germany’s capital city Berlin, comes the chaotic noise of SHOVEL. The band managed to establish themselves in the German underground after their colossal demo release in 2019, with an abrasive sound that amalgamates intense riffs and harrowingly existential screams with elusive, otherworldly industrial sounds and all consuming atmospheres. Traversing through a variety of psychedelic textures within the claustrophobic despair of black metal, SHOVEL’s self-titled debut album is gritty, raw and uncompromising. With incredible intensity the band chronicle a dairy of emotions, ideas and thoughts that they have all experienced in the years since their demo release.
As soon as Shovel starts you are hit with an almighty intensity and claustrophobia, boxed into a black room with violently strobed colours and various ominous shadows encircling you. The distortion furiously crackles and fuzzes through your skull with all the venom of a particularly angry grindcore band. If the odd track numbering didn’t jar you then the album’s production most certainly will. In what can only be described as an ambitious experiment with filters, the strange effects take you to the depths and launch you to the skies in one fast and vehement motion. There is a dizzying nature to the circling riffs and this philosophy of pure chaos transcends through the entirety of Shovel.
SHOVEL’s experimentation has certainly led to some intriguing results; the tumultuous soundscapes of loathing and anarchy is exhilarating yet haunting. Whilst pretty much every band has utilised and channelled the vast array of complex emotions that were brought on by the pandemic and the general disintegration of society as a whole to some extent in their recent releases, Shovel legitimately sounds like the actual human embodiment of emotional strife.
As you journey through the album, the songs become more and more intense. SHOVEL clearly have a penchant for throwing you through every level of Dante’s inferno and back again. As the dynamics continually and quickly shift between slow and doomy to thrashing and violent, there is no time to catch your breath before a squealing, disorientating lead pierces through your ear drum. The despairing vocals only add to the bleak canvas that the band have painted, whilst the odd and strange sounds that SHOVEL have implemented keep you on edge. With an increased use of reverb giving the record a distinct black metal atmosphere, alongside the band’s knowledge of post-metal production, the album is atmospheric, sludgy, doom-laden darkness from start to finish.
VII. Havoc opens the album with an abominable fury, quite literally causing havoc. With fast-paced riffs giving way to strange psychedelics it definitely gives you the first bitter taste of what is to come over the next 43 minutes, with its screeching, glitching solo backed by foreboding sludge riffs. V. Maere and VI. Scars Of A Dark Past follow in the same vain as the opener, with punky, sludgy chaos encompassing your soul and turning it black as the band really hammers down on the intense and claustrophobic atmosphere. I. The Void serves as the album’s turning point as it ventures more into eerie, proggy psychedelic doom territory.
Moving into III. The Fall Of The Sun the slower riffs ramp up the visceral intensity and Kostis Benning’s vocals have an even more haunting nature to them, as he screams into the void. IV. A Case Against Optimism is a dizzying and anxiety-inducing song as the slow build eventually transforms into a corkscrew riff that gradually increases in tempo, bringing on a sense of sonic nausea as the song eventually fades out. Shovel’s closer II. The Lake continues this slow build into vertiginous spiral riffing accompanied by deep harmonious chants that unnerve the spirit.
For a debut album SHOVEL have managed to capture the complexities of suffering through these last few years in a way not previously heard. The rawness of the production adds to the music’s intense, chaotic nature, you can’t help but feel that in a few years time SHOVEL just might be Germany’s answer to the legendary EYEHATEGOD in terms of causing absolute sonic chaos.
Rating: 8/10
Shovel is set for release on May 27th via Argonauta Records.
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