It's Saturday night and I'm drunk (I'm naming my firstborn "Bacardi") so no one should expect this post to be coherent.
Oh how I love Matt "The Riffking" Pike. Anyone who follows this blog should know this, as both High On Fire and Pike's previous band Sleep have been featured numerous times on this your favorite blog ever. Pike is so metal it hurts, he is the metal equivalent of a fucking barbarian on a battlefield wielding an axe into the faces of anyone unfortunate enough to get too close.
Devilution kick-starts the album with the same drum pattern that ended the previous album Surrounded By Thieves, tieing the two together nicely. Steve Albini's production brought a much-needed clarity and ferocity to High On Fire's sound, and Devilution's Motörhead-meets-Celtic-Frost ass-kickery won me over straight away.
The best song though is the title track, which starts off with a nod to Slayer circa 1988 before it turns into a mighty battering ram of fucking metal in the last two minutes.
These thrashier influences were always there, but here they were not only brought up to the front thanks to the much clearer and increasingly non-bullshit songwriting, but also thanks to Albini's aforementioned skills at the mixing desk. The truly qualities of High On Fire had for the first time been unearthed from a thick layer of mud.
While Surround By Thieves had its moments, I've never been able to make it through more than a couple of tracks at a time. The muddy, murky production simply gets the best of me, for the same reasons that Blues For The Red Sun is my least favorite Kyuss album. Sacrilege, I know. Deal with it.
The follow-up, 2007's Death Is This Communion kicks a fair amount of ass as well and this year's Snakes For The Divine ain't too shabby either, but Blessed Black Wings remains the jewel in the High On Fire crown.
JOE PRESTON FTW!!!!!
My head will hurt tomorrow and I probably won't remember writing any of this.
(mp3) High On Fire - Devilution
(mp3) High On Fire - Blessed black wings (recommended!)
Buy Blessed Black Wings @ Amazon.com.
1 comments:
Great way to spend a Saturday night, eh? :)
Getting close to the top 5 albums as well. Exciting - even though I'll personally hold this years "Snakes Of The Divine" higher than this one...
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