EP REVIEW: Incident Report: UC-0791227 – Stormland
When it comes to writing and recording your own music, it’s often hard at the best of times to find other musicians to work with. When you are based out in the middle of nowhere, and you are playing a style as niche as death metal, the task of finding like-minded musicians becomes even harder to accomplish. Burnaby, Canada’s STORMLAND found themselves in such a situation, with the band’s founder and sole member, Justin Pierrot, handling everything from the writing and recording through to the production of the music since their formation in 2003, with one of the only exceptions being the inclusion of a session drummer on their debut full length, 2018’s Songs of Future Wars. Hot on the heels of that record, STORMLAND returns with a new EP, Incident Report: UC-0791227.
To Begin acts as a brief intro track to set the listener up for what’s to come before STORMLAND launch straight into Contact, a powerful, groove-laden slab of death metal with some deep, rasping vocals and tight drums. The programmed drumming gives this song an intense, borderline industrial feel at points, and makes for a far more driven and focused piece of music. The guitars jump between thick, crunching rhythmic sections and slick, melodious leads, making for a catchy and fresh sound that really helps to raise the bar for the next three songs to surpass. Not My Day to Die shifts into a fairly brutal slab of monstrous music, with a few hints at tech-death musicality inject plenty of frenzied energy and engrossing guitar hooks into the mix. The vocals seem far more acerbic and visceral than on the first two tracks also, making this song sound all the more monolithic at points, and adding lots of depth to an already robust sound.
Penultimate track Process & Self-Medicate eschews the shorter, punchier approach of the early songs on then record, and makes its presence as a dark, slow burning offering with brooding guitar flourishes and authoritative, steady drumming, the the song slowly but surely morphing from the bleak, mid-paced power of its opening moments, bringing in cleaner guitar tones and a great, sludgy bass line which takes this song, very briefly, into the realms of prog-rock before diving headlong back into the monolithic territory of death metal. It’s a very eclectic and memorable song that utilises a lot of different elements in order to craft a song that is engrossing and climactic in spite of its extended length, laying the foundations for the fifth and final track on the record, Break My Stride, perfectly. This last offering is a short sharp shock of aggressive guitars, cacophonous drums and fierce gutturals, making this last, relatively short, track by far and away the fastest and most vicious piece of music on the whole record. Although at points the vocals seem a little disjointed, and the guitars reach a chaotic pace that threatens to derail at any second, it proves to be a brilliant way to bring this album to a close.
Incident Report: UC-0791227 is a great EP that makes full use of its twenty-one minutes. It is even more impressive to consider that, as well as being a great release, all of this music was written and recorded by one man, a hard feat that requires a lot of talent and focus. STORMLAND‘s newest offering is, if nothing else, is a testament to the talent and skill of Justin Pierrot.
Rating: 8/10
Incident Report: UC-0791227 is out now via self release.
Like STORMLAND on Facebook.