Future Ruins

Doom is a strange, strange sub-genre. There is some serious brilliance (Skepticism, Reverend Bizarre, Saturnus) that has been born of what may be the most original style of "heavy metal", if you ascribe to the Sabbathian creation myth, as well as some of the most egregiously terrible sores in the metal cannon. It's a sub-genre that has never truly formulated itself, its roots being so entangled with other strains of heavy that every 5 years or so it seems to take on a different sonic guise, with bands bearing the standard of "doom" often sounding similar for only a record or two then sailing away for newer climes.

But right now, doom is the hot seller, and I'm not simply talking about music. Groups like Evoken, Electric Wizard, and Sleep are seeing a marked resurgence in interest that for them must be very strange indeed. I would wager that these bands wouldn't even consider themselves doom metal, but the hunger, at the moment, for slow and heavy textures is literally high. I have a theory that the copious world-wide consumption of weed could be charted in tandem with doom metal's popularity, and you would see them coming together in a nice lengthy spike since 2010 or so. Because of the sameness of most doom/stoner bands' riff-craft, groups often choose to distinguish themselves by means of sticking to an iron-clad gimmick, like Bongripper, Weedeater, or Ahab. This tires me greatly, and anyhow, none of these bands have made a serious doom record.

Giza step into this volatile and crowded void without a gimmick, but they are armed with an clear idea of what they want to sound like. To this end, they tracked down Matt Bayles, the producer of some of Isis' more atmospheric records (and also, incedintally, some of the skitzoid punx The Blood Brothers' best records). With an album that contains no vocals, no overt lead guitar playing nor extra window dressing in the form of keys, the main sonic players (drums/bass/guitar) must be able to carry the thing beyond the sum of the parts. Giza's gambit is simple: screw the gimmicks. we think we've got some sick riffs, and we think we can play them better than anyone else.

And man, do they ever. This record sounds crushing from the starting line, Bayles giving the musical space a cavernous yet clean production that enhances the steady procession of riffs. Rarely does Future Ruins lag in this crucial department (even the Interlude is a nifty little piece), and repeated listenings will unearth some lovely six-stringed leitmotifs that are smartly returned to throughout the focused 30 minute runtime. It could be called sludge, but the atmosphere that the riffs create is what makes it doom: oppressive yet familiar, heavy yet oozing with melodic intent, slow yet never bogged down or too fascinated with its slowness, wickedly occult yet never devolving into trad cracker-jack progressions to summon its demons, with some freaky psychedelic cover art to boot.

And did I mention you can get all this for the price of free on ye olde bandcamp? What a wonderful world! Get it while it's still cult, because bands that are way worse than Giza are getting snapped up by the big distros all around the world. How they're still unsigned is an absolute mystery to me. But then again, they don't have a gimmick, do they?