ALBUM REVIEW: The Wandering Daughter – Piah Mater
The illusion of genre has loomed over the bloody shoulders of metal since the inception of the musical discipline. It is perhaps something natural to the enduring human spirit to desire to categorise and file everything into something reminiscent of order. It makes the retention of information far simpler, far easier, if things read as a neatly charted table, rather than the bizarre, convoluted and confused Venn diagram that is the genres of metal. Purists and the pedantic are wont to wrinkle their noses at those new wellsprings of creative expression formed in the borders between circles, though such borders are inevitable as time passes. The boundaries of many multitudes of sub-genres blur, or in some cases, disappear entirely. Such occurrences are important, and a cause for celebration. Somewhere in the world, someone’s musical horizons widened, even if it were by but a fraction of a centimetre.
In a time of such unparalleled connectivity, in as day and age where something can be old news across the globe in a mere day at most, horizons are widening faster and faster. Metal is changing with the digital age, and many are content to ride that wave. It can be difficult not to. And it is this difficulty that brings us to the case of PIAH MATER‘s new sophomore album, The Wandering Daughter. Brazil has produced some of death metals greatest progenitors, but sadly, The Wandering Daughter does not follow suit.
Despite the album’s brilliant title, and fantastic artwork, it does little to expand beyond the boundaries of the progressive death metal sub-genre it exists in. For many, this is perfectly reasonable. Play to your strengths, one might say. The issue with The Wandering Daughter is that it does not seem to try hard enough to cast off the dust of so many years of similar progressive death metal albums. The band’s vocalist readily states that the lyrical content of the album – focused on exploring humanity’s relationship with nature – is “not exactly groundbreaking territory”, and these sentiments carry over to the musical portion of the record.
It has sections of brilliance, to be sure. These are largely characterised by their acoustic elements, which are scattered frequently throughout the lengthy record. And where progressive death metal masters NE OBLIVISCARIS can fill twelve minute tracks with excitement, contrast and frenetic pace, PIAH MATER meander, making their lengthy efforts truly a task to get through. They are by no means badly written, or even particularly boring in the grand scheme of things, but modern progressive death metal packs far too much vibrancy in comparison. Other moments that shine are those filled with staggered blast beats, or the capable clean vocals of Luiz Filipe Netto, whose voice is reminiscent of Tim Charles or Michael Keene.
While it may provide a new explorer of the genre a visceral listening experience, to those inundated with progressive epics, The Wandering Daughter will be nothing fresh. It is clear that the album was written with no small degree of difficulty, but unfortunately, narrow horizons and lacklustre production stop the effort short. Though ambitious, it proves not quite ambitious enough.
Rating: 5/10
The Wandering Daughter is set for release on October 5th via Code666.
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