The Last Tree

California three-piece Cormorant storm out of the gates with their debut EP The Last Tree, sure to please fans of melodic, groovy death metal. An immediate comparison would be to the hefty grit of Amon Amarth, but though Cormorant takes the meaty Swedish sound as their blueprint, their songwriting has just as much in common with American troubadours like Dylan as it does their European metal counterparts. Cormorant (consisting of vocalist/fretless-bassist Arthur von Nagel, drummer/pianist Brennan Kunkel, and guitarist Nick Cohon), although still a fledgling band, bear watching if this EP is any indication of their future direction.

The album kicks off with “A Dance Of Elk Entwined”, certainly the catchiest of the five cuts and one that immediately recalls the aforementioned Amon Amarth. Beginning with a gritty guitar sound that wouldn’t seem out of place on a desert rock album, the song quickly segues into the memorable riff that forms the spine of the song. This song contains one of the best uses of phasing that I’ve heard in recent years, a technique that falls under the “less is more” school of sound design. “Rain Follows The Plow” is up next, with a nice ascending/descending riff about halfway through and a tasteful guitar flourish at the end. “Trojan Horses”, however, is where the album really begins to impress. The song features solid bass work throughout, and has a good sense of movement and progression. The headbanging starts in earnest about three minutes in, when Kunkel rips into a black metal drum blast that morphs into a mid-paced groove. Cohon shines on this track with his two brief but extremely well-written solos (very heavy metal), riffing over von Nagel’s repeated chorus: “Conception/Deception/Damnation/Ride”! The end of the song sees von Nagel approaching a greater vocal range, punctuating his growls with gruff, clipped shouts. “Two Brothers” is next, showing off von Nagel’s bass work throughout the thrumming, bouncy track. There are some ill-advised screams that close the song out, and while they don’t sound too great, they’re thematically appropriate in the context of the lyrics. The album closes with “Ballad Of The Beast”, by far the best and most forward-thinking of the five tracks. This song exhibits a strong sense of space and dynamics, with well-placed guitar flourishes and the best vocals on the album. The piano/rainstick outro and the dialogue between the female/male vocals nears greatness, and is again thematically apropos.

Mention must be made of the lyrics, far and away the most impressive aspect of the album. Von Nagel affects the role of storyteller throughout — his lyrics are eminently readable, erudite, and engaging (bonus points for use of “kakistocracy”), certainly leaps and bounds beyond the laughable high school notebook scribbling that passes for most lyrics in metal. The subject matter covers everything from the tribal hierarchy of wildlife, to 19th-century “Manifest Destiny” ideological push, to Biblical reworkings and the Spanish Inquisition. The artwork is also stunning for a band that funded this release entirely by themselves — a comparitively elaborate digipack, pro-pressed CD, and fabulous photography courtesy Johanna Kallin (whose photograph “The Lonely Tree” perhaps served as the titlepiece as well as the cover of this EP) and Per Velentin.

This EP is evidence of a band refining and tweaking an accepted European style into something more American and personal. While they still have technical kinks to work out — the kickdrum is much too high in several of the songs, the fretless bass is often lost in the mix, and von Nagel’s growls are often mixed far too low to be properly understood (a shame with such great lyrics) — Cormorant have proven with The Last Tree that they are capable of not only musical dynamism and engaging songwriting, but also sophistication without hubris; a rare bird, indeed.

(originally written for http://www.probablysmug.com, adapted for metal-archives)