Covenant

I got the Holocaust debut pretty much along with Metallica’s ”Garage Days” EP, which contained a cover of another song of the Brits, “The Small Hours”. I did like what I heard, but since absolutely no one around was talking about the band, and since I didn’t fall head-over-heels in love with their art, this band name got erased from the memory bank before long. It was more than ten years later when I bumped into “The Sound of Souls”, the nearly half-an-hour long EP, the ravishing progressive Voivodian thrashterpiece, a major game-changer in the band discography, which made me track down the latter with all the painstaking diligence I was capable of at the time.

So the prog-metal fibre was extended, but without the thrash, on the excellent follow-up “Hypnosis of Birds”, a surreal psychedelic excursion not far from Voivod’s “Nothingface”, but think the Canadians’ album’s less uplifting downbeat analogue, with “The Small Hours” thrown in again, but as a not very carefully-assessed, not very compatible afterthought. It seemed like John Mortimer had found a creative pool within himself, churning very good, thought-out music on regular bases, largely to the elitists’ delight.

However, we reach the album reviewed here, an outing on which the man’s creative flair goes a bit over-the-top, and not in such a good way. This is a very ambitious recording, with Mortimer trying to beat the progressive metal/rock roster in its own game, an ingratiating mission that proves near-impossible to accomplish, especially on an album that goes on for over an hour. What actually topples the album are the gigantic sagas, the 16.5 min “The Battle of Soaring Woodhelven” and the 9.5-min “Alexander”, overlong sprawling epics which text-wise by all means have their place in this overdone mosaics as they’re based on the novel “Lord Foul’s Bane” by Stephen Donaldson, this entry in itself a part of a bigger puzzle, the “Thomas Covenant Chronicles”. The thing is that these two puzzles here don’t stimulate the listener to solve them on the spot. Strange that Mortimer fails to weave them as dexterously: he achieved perfection on the 11.5-min masterpiece “Three Ways to Die” from “The Sound of Souls”… but it’s not the omission of the seeping thrashy aggression on that one that perturbs the mazey entanglements at every opportunity… Mortimer simply gets carried away this time, piling nuance after nuance without much logic or direction, “The Battle…” ruined by the insertion of cumbersome oblivious balladic etudes, above all, the purpose of those not clear even if they’ve only been intended as lyrical respites. The “Alexander” piece is just a levelled composed chugger that offers no drama, no climax, no denouement; the same rhythmic patterns rolling from beginning to end, a couple of more vivid epic flourishes notwithstanding. I don't know, maybe in some other universe, where Rush, Hawkwind and Pink Floyd rule with a firm psychedelic hand this sequence may make some sense, and maybe even be considered a highlight…

but not on this plane which is still capable of pulling out a grand nervy hectic near-thrasher like “Leper’s Progress”, the opener of this acquired taste which bridled energy gets taken away, slowly but surely, by the remainder be it with melancholic balladic takes (“Salt Heart”) or with monotonous doomy strolls (“We Shall See Him As He Is”). The angrier crunchy rhythms of “Return to Dust” stir bigger drama for a bit, but again this is a sombre doomy journey which is also supported by the atmospheric procession “Valley of Megiddo”, but the slowmotion apocalypse that gets settled with this duo invariably starts clinging towards the drowsy side, especially after the arrival of the very similarly-styled “Mount Thunder” which at least offers a couple of more vivid galloping decisions at some stage.

This isn’t one of the cases where an artist takes himself too seriously; nope. In fact, I think that Mortimer is one of the few auteurs out there who’ll never be blamed for that. This isn’t some pretentious show-offy charade; this is music that obviously comes from the heart, and is served with a certain compulsive urge-like aura. Still, this doesn’t exonerate the man from rambling for over an hour, turning his work into an overlong, not-easy to digest opera, one that only the most devoted connoisseurs will choose to follow hook by hook, stroke by stroke, riff by riff to the end. But even this rare species may find themselves diverting their attention from the proceedings, the latter by all means containing delightful moments for both the more and the less initiated, but there’s also quite a bit of wading through unnecessary ballast, passages that would test the listener’s patience, particularly on the two mentioned marathon-esque epics. It’s commendable that Mortimer tries not to repeat the same eerie psychedelic formula from the preceding instalment note-by-note, but by enmeshing it with epic, doom, prog-rock and what-not he loses this monolithic, homogenous layout… on “The Sound of Souls” he had the more aggressive thrashy element to stitch things together… here he lets all the ingredients loose into whichever direction they feel like branching out, the final result an intriguing but flawed incoherent phenomenon that will largely attract due to its highbrow convoluted nature than with any genuine claims at greatness.

Same goes for the follow-up “The Courage to Be” which followed suit three years later, this offering a bit more succinct and a tad more comprehensible, taking it easy on the lengthy epics. Then the plot turned towards dark more concrete non-fussy macabre metal on the brilliant “Primal”, a very pleasant surprise, with all the complexity from the previous several albums almost completely gone. Kudos to Mortimer for not repeating himself and keeping things interesting one way or another, but the disappearing act he did on the fanbase was confusing and devoid of logic as the man definitely had at least one more “Primal” in him. A decade later the name of the game has become classic heavy metal, a return to the band’s very roots of some sorts, with motifs and nuances from his other works also present, largely for good measure. The covenant has turned into a predator, but that’s alright… this one only preys on the lost, mortal soundless souls.

In the past, I've praised a very select few works of musical prowess for being so coherent, so seamless and flawless in their execution that it was nearly impossible to point out any flaw; Virgin Steele's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Part II being close while Slauter Xstroyes' Winter Kill and Fates Warning's Awaken the Guardian are right on the cusp, particularly the latter. I've praised both for being precise and deliberate in their execution down to the note, the only problems being some minor inconsistencies throughout Winter Kill and some minor problems with the Fates Warning song "The Sorceress," respectively. Holocaust's Covenant, despite being much lesser known than Awaken the Guardian and likely lesser known than Winter Kill as well, does not have these problems, to any extent. The ambition is cranked up to the max, equaling that of Awaken the Guardian, and there are precisely zero inconsistencies, not in a single song, nor even a single note. Put quite simply, Holocaust's Covenant is a perfect album.

Of course, these are incredibly bold claims to make, so I will spend a significant amount of time here substantiating them as best I can. As I stated, Winter Kill and Awaken the Guardian have a nearly unique quality to them in that both are incredibly complex, creating multiple melodies simultaneously, melodies which nearly constantly change, and a tempo which is often in flux as well to add yet another element to the extensive labyrinth of factors at play, all of which have to be precisely controlled at all times with complete and unfailing vigil. Another album that does this, Psychotic Waltz's A Social Grace (the only album I've heard which has this property) is something I haven't reviewed at the time of this writing, but is similar in quality to the two albums which I've been comparing, and it falls somewhere in between the two in terms of successful execution, I would say. However, I'll not go too long into that album here, except to be grouped in with the other aforementioned albums as the closest point of reference to the album in question, Holocaust's almighty Covenant.

So - this aspect of constant precision down to the barest minutia is the core foundation which familiarizes these four albums with one another. What then, is the further distinction among them, specifically to categorize Covenant as perfect, but not to do so for the others? The differences in quality are quite subtle, to be sure, requiring many, many listens of all of them in order to fairly compare on that level, and necessarily quite subjective, though I will give explanation to the best of my ability. For the rest of this review, this quality of precision will be considered the surface, even though it takes a fair amount of analysis even to recognize it. To dig down further, perceiving the next level of musical experience, we must look at the album's coherence as a united whole. By this I mean, not only the fact that it flows well, even seamlessly, from song to song, but the idea of looking back at the album with a greater scope and examining to what extent the album resembles one single, completely unadulterated and unfractured experience.

Winter Kill, in my opinion, misses the mark there. Upon the first few listens it feels like one continuous experience, but some of the songs, such as "The Stage," stray from the point too far on further examination. Past this distinction, it becomes excessively more difficult to judge further factors, but the one that really makes it the most for me is relatability. This is certainly very subjective, and others are free to disagree, but I feel the amount to and the frequency with which I can relate to an album is important. Awaken the Guardian is an incredibly masterful album, but more in the way that one looks in awe at some strange and unthinkable entity; it is nearly incomparably marvelous, but I can't listen to it very often at all given the amount of energy it takes, even after having listened to it numerous times, to connect with its atmosphere. This could certainly be seen as a point in its favor, and it is certainly a fundamental principle of the experience of listening to that album, yet still I find myself coming back more and more to Covenant, which, as you will learn if you hear it, is by no means a catchy or accessible album. A Social Grace is somewhat more relatable than Awaken the Guardian, but still it takes a certain frame of mind to appreciate it, in which one must be able to tolerate the pure insanity into which one descends therein. Again, these are all utterly brilliant albums, and it is extremely difficult to make these distinctions, but I will make them just the same and put Covenant at the very top.

So, finally putting aside other albums, for which I'm sure most of you will be grateful, what is it specifically which makes Covenant perfect, and, more specifically, so relatable simultaneously? First sticking to a more literal interpretation of the music, what we have here is a fairly diverse set of styles and feelings. While I would venture to say that thrash is the most prevalent style here - see "Leper's Progress," "Valley of Megiddo," and parts of "The Battle of Soaring Woodhelvenin" - songwriting genius and driving force of the band John Mortimer presents us with a distinct riffing style which can really only be shoehorned into the nebulous and nearly meaningless term "progressive metal." While 1989's The Sound of Souls saw a huge Voivod influence, to the point that it was nearly worship, here and on Hypnosis of Birds we see that Voivodian dissonance combined with a lighter, yet still strange and unearthly touch, a bit reminiscent of Rush yet so deeply ingrained into the riffs that it's almost impossible to say for sure. Really, it's a style only heard from Mortimer, and at this point in his career even Voivod don't sound terribly close to it, other than perhaps a few fleeting moments here and there.

Other styles here include the sort of progressive rock styled ballad "Salt Heart" which again hearkens a bit to Rush but not strongly enough to really provide a consistent correlation. Finally, in the album's magnum opus, and the best song I have ever heard without contest, "The Battle of Soaring Woodhelvenin," we get such a variety of styles, genres, and moods that it's impossible to truly categorize it, although to be as succinct as possible we get a melancholic acoustic setting not really particular to any genre, some aggressive death/thrash riffing towards the end, an enormously mature manifestation of Mortimer's bizarre riffing style, and at two points, what I would describe from a perspective without enough knowledge to discern precisely in this area as waltz. Yes, you heard me correctly, fucking waltz. And it's incorporated perfectly into the song, somehow.

Another aspect of what makes this album so incredible is likely the backdrop on which it is set, Stephen Donaldson's wonderful novel Lord Foul's Bane, the first book in the Thomas Covenant Chronicles. You see, even in Hypnosis of Birds we see the unique riffing style to which I keep referring is inherently conflicting, combining hopeless dissonance somehow flawlessly with a persistent, unrelenting hope. This stark contradiction was practically created for the character of Thomas Covenant, who in fact describes himself frequently as a contradiction throughout the series, the personal conflict central to his character driving the entirety of the series, at least in the first trilogy and certainly in Lord Foul's Bane. We see his stark self-hatred rampant in "Leper's Progress," but that bridge section is quite hopeful, providing that central conflict that works so well here. "Salt Heart" seems cautiously optimistic, but then with "Return to Dust" we get an apathetic portrayal of fatalism, followed by being torn back in forth among so many different thoughts and moods in "The Battle of Soaring Woodhelvenin," which seems to provide a realistic portrayal of the constant chaos and doubt present in battle, though I couldn't speak from personal experience. "Valley of Megiddo" shows strong hostility and frustration, followed by the resigned, fearful nature of "Mount Thunder" and, finally, a burgeoning sense of peace throughout "We Shall See HIm As He Is" and "Alexander."

So, to hearken back to my description of the album as "relatable," that's really what I have to say about it at its very core. It shows a constant inner turmoil, combined with fleeting hope, plaguing doubts, intense distress, apathy, despair, and peace, this album presents such an array of emotion on such a transcendent level that it wonderfully emulates life itself. While many albums, great albums even, focus on a single emotion or perhaps two and run with it, this one explores, without flaw, virtually the entire range of human emotion, often at the deepest level, and the conflict and caprice with which we experience them. This is created by, I'll reiterate, the precise complexities constantly held here, down to the very last bass pick and drum beat. There is not a single second of waste here, and we get an inimitable, incomparable, simply perfect expression of human experience presented here, made up by everything I've mentioned throughout the review. We're left at the end with a strong sense of catharsis and a pervading sense of contentment in our humanity, and though I know the actual intention of the words is likely a bit different, I like to think Mortimer and I see eye to eye with the titular phrase of the penultimate song, as a descriptor of mankind in all his beauty and imperfection:

We shall see him as he is...

It is only relatively recently that I discovered Holocaust had survived the NWOBHM apocalypse of the mid-to-late 80s. Most of those bands not named Iron Maiden were swept away and forgotten, their band members forced to get real jobs, while most of the younger British folks started playing thrash or death/doom. A notable few, such as Cloven Hoof and Satan/Blind Fury/Pariah managed to evolve and survive in almost unrecognizable but nonetheless satisfying forms. Luckily, Holocaust fit squarely into the latter category. Honestly you might as well forget Holocaust used to play NWOBHM altogether, because there are no traces of it left. The entire 80s lineup has been scrapped, with only guitarist (and now vocalist) John Mortimer sticking around. Mortimer’s voice isn’t terribly good, coming across most of the time as rather pedestrian, yet he sings with conviction and hits the notes well enough that it’s never really a problem. Snake from Voivod’s later stuff is actually an apt comparison (you’re going to get tired of hearing about Voivod by the end).

Even if you hadn’t read the first part of the review and knew nothing about Holocaust’s later material, a mere glance at song lengths would tip you off immediately to the fact that something has changed since their early days, and it doesn’t take Rain Man to bet on epic progressive songwriting being in the cards. The songs go through numerous mood shifts, all handled extremely well. It’s never clear exactly where the songs are going to go, but all shifts are organic, and you see why they went where they did once they do. As for nuts and bolts, there are a lot of heavy, atypically melodic riffs in a way that reminds me of mid-period Voivod, when they were more rocking and less thrash (the prominent bass supports this comparison). Still, Holocaust are their own creature, with quirks and tricks all their own. It is, in fact, very difficult to accurately categorize this album. There is progressive rock, there is a bit of thrash, there is plain ol’ heavy metal, and I even hear a bit of Radiohead's earlier stuff, but combined in ways I’ve never heard before (and I’ve heard a lot). Hell, there’s probably even influence from music I’ve never even heard before. There are these amazing transcendent serene sections with lots of broken chords as heard on “Return to Dust”, but also great crushing riffs of unusual construction, also heard on “Return to Dust”. Some songs tend to lean more toward the calm, serene side of the band (“Salt Heart”, “We Shall See Him As He Is”), while others lean more toward the aggressive, crushing side (“Valley of Megiddo”) but both sides are very strong. In the middle is the off-kilter, unusual sound the band adopts when building tension (“Mount Thunder”). The band makes use of unusual harmonies frequently as another way to emphasize tension and its resolution; on “We Shall See Him As He Is” for example, the bass and a distorted guitar hammer out one unchanging power chord while a clean guitar plays broken chords along with the vocals. The latter go through chord changes while the former stay the same, creating dissonance that resolves powerfully when the clean guitar and vocals come back to the original chord.

Again looking at song lengths, you would be led to believe that the 16+ minute “The Battle of Soaring Woodhelven” is the centerpiece of the album. You would again be correct in this assessment. It is a towering epic, filled with mood shifts and violence, much like the battle for the huge tree-city it describes. Did I mention this is a concept album based on a fantasy novel? More on that later. Unique among its fellows, “The Battle...” starts out with speedy traditional riffing, which then segues into an off-kilter and decidedly strange section, before returning to the speedy bit. This deconstructs into a soft interlude, as Thomas Covenant ponders his options – finally exploding into murderous rage as the song swings into its climax with bludgeoning riffs, pounding bass, and demonic roars and screams. GIVE ME SOULLLLL CRUSHHHERRR!!! There’s more, but that gives you an idea; it’s really a masterpiece.

As I mentioned in passing earlier, Covenant is based on a fantasy novel, Lord Foul’s Bane by Stephen R Donaldson, which is the first in the trilogy of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. Coincidentally I had read all the books before picking the album up, and didn’t even realize it was a concept album based on the first one until I started hearing about leprosy and giants named Saltheart Foamfollower. For those interested, I would heartily recommend the first trilogy in the series to all fantasy literature fans. Like this album, it’s rather dark in tone, but ultimately uplifting (stay away from the later books, though). Unfortunately I can’t review this album from the perspective of someone who hasn’t read the book, but my appreciation of the subject matter only serves to enhance my appreciation of the musical quality that is already present. The characterization of the jovial and courageous giant in “Salt Heart” harmonized with my fondness of him from the books, while the different sections of “The Battle of Soaring Woodhelven” told a story I could follow. The concept might not make as much sense to people who aren’t familiar with the novel, but the music tells the story well enough, from a purely emotional perspective.

I am not one of those types of people who praise experimentation above all else; most of my favorite bands play within established traditions, though each still brings its own personal touch. When I say Holocaust play a style completely their own and very far from any metal tradition, that declaration does not necessarily mean I think this album is any good. However, their style is not simply experimental masturbation; it feels natural, they stick to it consistently, and what’s more, they manage to write some damn good songs. If you want a breath of air that’s still fresh after more than ten years, it would be hard to choose better.