Still Hours

A bit of an anomaly on MA, the annoyingly-named (waning) (like, they make all my brackets look dumb) probably qualifies as metal only by a hair’s breadth, and in the case of Still Hours it really depends which song you listen to. I can identify ways in which the Americans bear similarities to The Gathering, firstly in the use of keyboards as more or less the lead instrument, then also due to a mix of female and male vocals, while infrequent doom death moments signal towards the Dutch act’s early work. However, saturate that influence with the more out-there tendencies of The Gathering’s turn of the millennium stuff or maybe Nadja when things become achingly slow and then you’re a bit closer to the truth. So no, not really a constant headbanging experience.

Likely the peak moment of heaviness comes with ‘The Onliest Ones’, which owes its drama and pacing to doom death of the old school, including some pretty sick growls that we don’t often hear elsewhere. I suppose maybe My Silent Wake or Saturnus might be a close partner for those, though there’s also something a bit unique happening with the keys and atmosphere that makes me wish (waning) had produced a few more in a similar vein. The reality, however, is that the atmosphere becomes more important than the songs at times, with great attention to building up soundscapes during ‘Ossuary’ and ‘Shadows on the Seawall’, eschewing vocals for quite long periods. The latter opens with nearly 3 minutes of ambience, so you can gather that the quartet feel unhurried. As the album progresses, the heaviness sort of washes out of the experience too, meaning that ‘Lift Your Veil’ begins as a tense pop song and ‘Never Still the Whip’ sounds like an ambient mantra of clean guitar.

I think it’s probably hard to tell from pure words whether (waning) and Still Hours will be for you. Indeed, it’s quite a different listen to me at different times, since I sometimes feel that nothing is moving forward and the music stagnates for too long, while it’s a wonderful album if you have time to contemplate while listening. Good for a long train journey or a soak in a hot bath, perhaps. The direction of the songs from heavier to lighter may help in this regard, since you could go into the album with one mood and come out in another, which I often find one of the best things about atmospheric music. Fans of introspective groups from Katatonia to Nick Cave might like this.