Stabwound

The past few years have brought about a huge amount of bands mixing black metal with post-rock and other influences, and like any other trend it has lead to a flood of music that is either really great or really bland. Seagrave, a one man band hailing from Austria, fall somewhere in the middle. Stabwound is the first and only release so far, and shows some potential for growth. Going into this album, I expected atmospheric black metal with some post-rock sections, especially judging by the album art which, while not the greatest, could be used for some Alcest-esque artist. What I got was somewhere between post-black and modern screamo such as Pianos Become the Teeth or Touche Amore.

The album kicks in pretty heavily with a decent riff and the vocalist coming in with an angry, almost monotone shout that will stay throughout most of the album; not quite a scream, more of just a forced yelling. The song shortly changes to a quieter section with a very out of place sample from what I'm assuming is a movie. This happens several times throughout the record and every time it feels awkward and messes up what atmosphere was going on, especially on the track Bonjour Tristesse, where the sample comes over what would have been a very nice instrumental buildup. The samples fit with the lyrical themes of the album at least, dealing with relationships and personal struggles. I do wish that they had been used as interludes between the songs rather than being thrown down in the middle of a track, as it completely ruins the songs.

The post rock elements on this album are easily recognizable, with the simple guitar melodies that create the atmosphere in a lot of newer post rock acts and the quieter crescendos. A few of these moments will sound like they are about to burst into a heavy section, yet the song switches again leaving your mouth dry and wanting something more. It all seems very similar to what you would hear on Pianos Become the Teeth or a similar post-hardcore/screamo/post-rock act(but without the neat guitar doodling some of those bands give), and while this isn't a bad thing, it's hardly black metal. Some of the riffs are reminiscent of black metal though, and there are occasionally blast beats which keeps it all leaning on the metal side of things. The intro for Down With The Wolves is a good example of this tracks more metal moments, and by far the best part of the album. The vocals changed to a higher pitched scream and musically the song is much closer to atmospheric black metal than the rest of this release. The screaming vocals reappear further on in the track and close it all together. If more songs on here where in that vein, this release would get a higher ranking.

In the end this album has it's moments but fails overall in its execution. It's a decent release, but I would recommend this to somebody who enjoys post-rock and screamo before I would ever recommend it to an atmospheric black metal fan. There is potential for growth, with sections of the album having some good guitar melodies and overall a nice atmosphere. If you turn on this record expecting any sort of traditional black metal, you may find yourself at a loss. But it does hold it's own when you do listen, especially if you're any sort of a fan of post-rock or modern post-hardcore/screamo and while not overly memorable, this album has it's times of being a solid release. It's very clear what the intent of this release was, but the end result didn't quite meet what I expected to hear. Better luck next time perhaps.