Review: Ba'al - The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here (Matt Bladen)

Ba’al - The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here (Road To Masochist)

Ba'al's last release, the EP Soft Eyes was more than happily acclaimed by Mr Paul Scoble, a man of definitive taste, he exclaimed that any album following that EP would be one to look out for. That to me means something, on the back of that EP, the band found themselves on tour with our friends in Ofnus, endearing them more towards us here at MoM Towers.

So here it is then, less than a year later and Ba'al return with their second full length record The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here. Recorded and mixed by Joe Clayton (Conjurer, Dawn Walker, Mountain Caller, Ithaca etc) and mastered by Brad Boatright (Kylesa, Vastum, Obituary, Night Demon etc), during the same sessions as the Soft Eyes EP, this is Ba'al taking a giant leap into becoming one of the foremost masters of their craft, each tracks constructed in a labyrinthine format of slow builds into destructive brilliance, this record is a level above what has come before.

The Sheffield band keenly draw from the likes of Crippled Black Phoenix or Harakiri For The Sky, both bands who use dynamics better than any others, with as much reverence to black metal ferocity as they have for progressive rock atmospherics, Ba’al paint a pictures with their music, enveloping you completely. The perfection of the production allowing every clattering minute of blast beat and unbridled anger to be captured with the same deftness as when they shift their focus to those ambient, haunting passages.

From the opening chords, there is something special about this album, an ode to where they came from but firmly aiming to where they are going, adding strings and synths as ways to further expand their emotionally potent sound which trades off between black metal, doom, prog, post metal, sludge and countless other sub-genres that you could spend all day picking at rather than just enjoying the expanse of this record.

Mother's Concrete Womb starts the record as it means to go on a solitary piano, building into strings, clean guitars for around 4 minutes until the glacial black metal emerges with visions of oppressive cityscapes, the band in a constant war between the harshness of their urban dwelling and the longing for rural escape. A staggering beginning that knocks you off your feet from the first moment, the build, the savagery, the sound of a band no longer tethered by constraints, playing with instinct as to who they want to be as a band.

Every track on The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here forms a journey in its own right, inspired by the most personal themes such as grief, depression, suicide, substance abuse and other cheery topics, the music here looks at what it is to be human, good, bad and often very ugly the tripolar vocals (scream/growls/cleans) from Joe Stamps as expansive as the music surrounding them, growling, shrieking and clean lows all carrying weight.

Mother's Concrete Womb, is an epic (14 odd minutes) but it's not the lone case, Ba'al now clearly want to only write epic music, so over the course of 6 tracks and an hour of music, the melodies slither from one track into another, as cello from the first song bleeds into Waxwork Gorgon, fluid guitar atmospherics from Nick Gosling and Chris Mole soon make way for knuckle dragging doom. With more black metal shrieks and just as fast the string swell, the guitars murmur with a discordant fuzz as Luke Rutter's drums take centre stage, with some weighty, passionate fills and deft rhythms. Joe's vocals adopting a folk croak of Ian Anderson until the heaviness reappears, like a spectre looming just out of frame ready to scare just as you get comfortable.

We revert to jazz towards the closing moments, the prog metal of bands such as Leprous and Opeth appear at the beginning of Floral Cairn, the angular, techy riffs, as they again head into black metal trem sections, the call of horns just heard in the background when they really increase the pace. The movements within these songs are seamless and intense, jockeying between all of their influences with a maturity of band with far longer than 10 years on the clock.

The expulsion at the end of Floral Cairn, is again countered by the dramatic beginnings of Well Of Sorrows, another track that switches between the varying genres, but there's something else on offer here, almost like a catharsis, towards the end the guitars give a sound akin to a church organ as pent up emotions from the first part of the record fell like they are released here.

A moment of closure as Well Of Sorrows has an end, The Ocean That Fills A World then is the new beginning, serpentine bass from Richard Spencer at work from the beginning as here they embrace Floydian textures, again these more introspective, melodic moments give way to the most frostbitten black metal of the whole record. The juxtaposition here showing the serious skill and thought that has been put into this album to make sure every track hits as hard as it can, improving on their debut in every aspect. 

Legasov closes The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here with muscle, start-stop riffs ala Meshuggah, with transitions into black metal, glistening ambience and again a feel of being cathartic and triumphant, the tremolo picking piercing through the speakers in conjunction with rapid string section as things build towards a fantastic crescendo of discordant feedback, as the sludgy crush returns for the finale.

It’s breath-taking, but makes you want to play it all over again. The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here, is Ba’al solidifying their potency and their place amongst the UK’s elite acts. 10/10

Editor's Note: Roll on them playing One For Sorrow in Plymouth at the end of August alongside Pantheist, Ofnus, The Crawling, The Drowning, Shores Of Null and many others