Impermanence

It's always important to keep an eye on your local scene, no matter how small. Last night I was tuning into Brisbane's only metal radio show, the Valley of Death on 4ZZZ (!) when Jacson, guitarist of Remission called in for an interview. He seemed like a nice bloke, so I listened in for the next song, which was the closer from Impermanence- to his dismay, as "it's best listened to in context" (It is). The song starts with this sweeping scale into the verse that instantly reminds me of one of my favorite technical thrash albums, Terminal Redux by Vektor. The track also has this quiet, 'no-fi' blackened vocal mumbling at the start and a fuzzy, rich bass tone that is imitated often but rarely mastered. Then the actual vocals come in, deep guttural chants that occasionally soar and harmonize, and seamlessly descend into proper kvlt shrieking (which sounds even better squeezed through a long-wave radio. The hooks are technical, but still catchy as hell, and the fast snare fills that hold back silence are a little buried in the mix, but still titanic. There's a great solo too, a short showcase of everything the guitarist (Not sure which one) has in his moveset. It's an epic, brutal closer that is worthy of standing next to Recharging the Void and Titan (off Edcysis by Horrendous) - but Jacson was right - It's always better in the context of the album! So I wrote myself a memo with the band's name and went to bed.

My first thought of the album the next day was that the cover art looked a little weak compared to the music. It looks nice up close, but from far away it blends in pretty badly with any other band. It's not a dealbreaker for me though. My second thought is that the band's name is based on the Mastodon album. The opener, Ad Astra, is a nice ambient buildup, with little inserts of sound effects and harmonic guitar noodling to set the mood. Then straight into Castor, which pummels you with a quick drum fill, then straight into more Vektor-infused hooks arpeggios. The pressure doesn't let off for the next 40 minutes, the band giving their all on banger after banger. Everyone is operating at their maximum, every member has a space to shine. Hellfire and Pollux showcase Jacson and Curt at their best, doing Gojira pick scrapes, Car Bomb 'pew pew pew' sounds, and some of the most satisfying sweep-picking and pinch harmonics this year. And somehow the band combines this intoxicating, muddying complexity with mindless caveman chugging and blast beats. They bring opposite genre stylings in and make them feel at home, a fusion of death, thrash, black, progressive, melodic, and even a little bit of hardcore punk in the vocals. And unlike actual fusion food, this isn't hit or miss.

The lyrics are fine for the most part, although I didn't focus on them all that much. Looking at their 'Influences' playlist on Spotify, it's not hard to see where Remission's sound is from. Revocation's technicality, Death's brutality, Power Trip's energy and I was bang on with the Vektor injection. Actually, I think I've mentioned Vektor more than I've actually said the band's name. Anyway, with all this praise of perfection, why didn't I rate it in the 90-100 range? Well, I know that they'll be able to beat this mark easily in the future, maybe even do something... conceptual? After that, they can finally escape the unforgiving, evil chains of PERTH, and make it big on the distant land of The Australian West Coast. Needless to say, I've already ordered my CD copy on Bandcamp.

Remember kids, your favorite big band was a local band at one point! Support Local!