If there was a genre called Appalachian Mountain Rock then surely Bask would be the originators, this North Carolina four piece bring desert rock to the mountains as pinched melodic guitar lines are met with brooding heaviness just below the surface that occasionally boils over into monstrous riffs, that adds a freshness to their Southern rock trappings, they've been described as cinematic and they are that, music in widescreen if you will, there's so much going on you will have to spin this record a few times, preferably on headphones as the production has a very distinctive left-right split and if you don't have both sides it will sound thin. The drumming of Scott Middleton is breathtaking as this Allman Bros-meets-Mastodon amalgamation gets under your skin, with songs such as New Dominion which has those slick Allman/Betts guitar harmonies from Ray Worth and Zeb Camp, running right through it. III is the bands third record and it's their most accomplished, filled with melancholy and weighty rather than being the traditional heavy you'd think about.
Songs such as Noble Daughters I: The Stave get some grunting distortion from Jesse Van Note without going into the realms of Bask tour mates High On Fire or Weedeater, it segues into the rocking but an life affirming Noble Daughters II: The Bow which serves as a tasty progressive suite with that builds into a tremendous crescendo as the album closes out with Maiden Mother Crone a song that takes things down to the river as Jed Willis and Meg Mulhearn add some Pedal Steel and Fiddle to this folksy finale. I didn't know what to expect of Bask but this mix of stoner rock, post-rock, Americana and psychedelia really astounded me. A band that has an original sound is soemthing that should be praised and rightly so Bask get a lot of praise from this writer. 8/10
Runemagick: Into Desolate Realms (High Roller Records) [Matt Bladen]
Having formed in 1990 as Desiderius, the Gothenburg band then went by Runemagic from 1990-1993, coming back as Runemagick between 1997-2007, then after a 10 year hiatus they have returned seemingly for good in 2017. This long potted history means that Into Desolate Realms is the bands 13th studio album their first album for High Roller Records. Now High Roller Records usually does it's stock in trade with traditional metal bands so Runemagick is something a little different, I mean there are lots of twin guitar harmonies as Nicklas 'Terror' Rudolfsson and Jonas Blom trade off on the title track but the music here is death/doom metal, it creeps out of your stereo with a down tuned heaviness provided by the guitarists, who can switch from big chord hits to tremolo picking with ease. The death comes from 'Terror's growled vocal style, but the real grunt comes from bassist Emma Rudolfsson and the metronomic drumming of Daniel Moilanen. If you want some bouncy heavy metal then you won't find it here, the band themselves describe their music as slow to mid tempo and there will be no disagreements from me, as the album writhes with insistancy checkout Sorceress Reburned for some real heft. A band who have never followed any rules musically Into Desolate Realms mixes death metal's nastiness, vocally/lyrically and the musically dexterous epic doom metal (the guitar playing is brilliant) it's a strong return from a band who I hope will flourish from here. 7/10
This was sent to be under the banner of Black metal rock thing. (I have a way with genre titles - Ed) That may be because they are something of a supergroup made up of past members of BM groups like Vinterland and Maze of torment. Make no mistake, this is no BM rock mash up. It’s more of an 80s darkwave throw-back with a sprinkling of BM stylings, and it’s fucking massive! It has a clear-cut sense of identity within the music. Think Finntroll vocals and electro/industrial musicianship. There are heavier tracks like title track Atomvinter, balanced nicely with quieter tunes such as A Place To Call Home. This is political stuff, very aware of itself, but never self-indulgent. Black metal can sometimes be suffocating with its savage riffing and battering drum sections, but this proves that BM artists are more than capable of departing from their roots and reinventing themselves.
This is next level stuff, giving us something new, whilst infusing well-trodden ideas. It rarely loses its way and sometimes surprises us with well-timed passages of Editors era indie-rock. Where it really succeeds is in the tracks recorded in Swedish. Like Rammstein, it doesn’t matter about understanding the lyrics, because the music carries such weight. It has groove, beat, rough-edged production, darkness and a real sense of epic style. This is the kind of outfit that would be at home headlining the Sophie Tent at BOA. It’s designed to get people rocking out in their masses with its huge sound and dance-like sensibility. This is one for the goths and those who like a bit of fusion in their music. 9/10
NAUT: Semele (Self Released) [Lee Burgess]
I’m feeling rather lucky with my review picks lately. NAUT give us a real big dose of post-punk with their new-romantic tunes that sound as if we’ve fallen away from the stupidity of Brexit Britain and landed somewhere in Europe in 1985 to get shit-faced in a club with awesome live music thumping out all around us. This kind of reminds me of Fields Of The Nephilim doing the bad thing with Tangerine Dream. In short, it’s bloody glorious. I only have a 3 track EP, but if perchance somebody could send me over a never-ending supply of this stuff, I would be very pleased indeed. If you are a fan of The Cure or The Cult, please wrap your ears around this. It really is so good to hear dark rock of this calibre.
If you fancy getting trapped in an 80’s post-punk horror movie or a remake of Donnie Darko, then this is what you need. This isn’t heavy in the metal sense, but it is full of atmosphere with an almost witch-like quality. It’s clear that this band have designs on crafting music that has been and gone, but if this is the kind of resurrection we can expect, bring it the hell on. What is so great here is that NAUT borrow from so many great bands, but instead of ripping them off, or getting confused over styles and genres, NAUT get on with the business of making glistening dark rock that sounds theatrical and expensive in production. 9/10
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