New Spins: Monday 14th September 2020

Welcome again to New Spins. This week some recent releases from three fantastic bands; some of it brand new music and some of it not-so-new music. All of it brilliant...

Leaden Fumes - Abandon Ship

On the face of it, German band Leaden Fumes play a traditional a style of doom, akin to St. Vitus, Trouble etc. But despite this they don't feel like a particularly vintage band; there's a certain modernity in their elemental doom sound which, coupled with some great hooks and catchy riffs, makes their newest album Abandon Ship a cracking listen. The band can do many things well: they can do fast and dark, they can do slow and droning, they can do quiet and solemn, they can do epic and dramatic, and they can do intense doom riffing too, all of it with a sense of fun that shows this is a group who really love the music they make.

The record is a nautical lovecraftian storyboard, with tales of underwater discover and warnings of Cthulu's rise, mixing in plenty psychedelic sound effects and samples that help the band produce something that feels like a narrative without being traditionally linear. Like the Portuguese man-o-war which adorns the cover of the record, Leaden Fumes are not one single organism but a whole mass of many different life-forms working together as one. For the hydrozoan the pursuit is one of survival and pro-creation, for Leaden Fumes it is the pursuit of fucking awesome doom metal!

https://leadenfumes.bandcamp.com/album/abandon-ship 

Bongripper - Glaciers

This one has actually been on my playlist for a few months, but I've only recently got round to properly taking it in. When Bongripper, who I called the 10th best doom band of all time, put out a new EP in May I was excited for some more filthy, catchy and unfathomably heavy stoner riffs. Instead the band have concocted 20+ minutes of ambient drones which were originally recorded over a decade ago, and only recently brought to light by guitarist/producer Dennis Pleckham. It's certainly not out of Bongripper's comfort zone to do something as ambient as this in their records, but to produce an entire EP of it was certainly a nice surprise. It's an intriguing three-part track which is drone music in the truest sense: no beats, no vocals, only abstract sounds which could well be a finely crafted composition or just a stretched out version of the feedback created when Bongripper turn all their amps on. Either way it's great, and if you like drone music then this is well worth a listen.

https://bongripper.bandcamp.com/album/glaciers 

Zeal & Ardor - Vigil / I Can't Breathe

Zeal & Ardor are undoubtedly one of the most unique bands in modern metal, and that singularity comes from their innovative connection to black music, a connection which runs deep in both their lyrical content and musical style. It wasn't surprising to see a new release from them in the wake of the escalating black lives matter protests of recent months, and the increased awareness of the institutionally racist murders taking place almost daily in the States.

These two tracks are a preview to their upcoming EP Wake of a Nation, and are both equally powerful if sonically quite different. Vigil is an emotionally raw piano-led tune balanced with Zeal & Ardor's typical combination of ethereal post-metal and earthly soul. I Can't Breathe is an angry mass of electronic drones over a huge beat interspersed with clips from the recent protests. Interestingly, the EP has been mixed by Will Putney, the king of Deathcore production and one of the finest mixers in modern extreme metal, so I'm hoping we might be in for some real heaviness on the rest of the EP.

I'm glad that Zeal & Ardor have produced this musical statement because the metal world needs an artist like Manuel Gagneux at it's forefront, someone truly unafraid and bold in the face of racism. The full EP comes out on October 23rd.

https://zealandardor.bandcamp.com/