Life Drawing

Twist Iommi's riff writing capability, delicately add in the angst of Eyehategod, build up an atmosphere to the skies of sonic turbulence acknowledging Agalloch's writing capability and club it with low melodic frequencies that can crash open a pandora's box of harsh vocals and we have Stoneburner's latest offering Life Drawing. This is a definitive sludge slab of ugliness but what's most interesting is how the album leans onto the basic Sabbath's writing style, most of the riffs could easily be fit into what Sabbath does in day in day out, what's exactly different is how Stoneburner does it in entirety and presents it all on a platter of feedback induced coma which strips off your sanity piece by piece.

Literally every song on this album is carefully put together, I'd love to hear more about the band's song writing process because these songs simply did not appear in the structure I'm listening to right now, there's definitely been a lot of thought and a whole lot of ideas, riffs and notes that went down the bin. Stoneburner have put out a fantastic album, an unusual one and something that will spine up through time. Song #2 Caged Bird opens with interwoven bass notes and slow torturous symbols which set in the mood for the first two and half minutes of this monolith. The drums slowly kick in to add to the misery of the bass giving you the hint of what's to come as the distortion literally shapes up to the vocals and feels like a slow surgery without an anesthetic, Stoneburner neither has method or madness to their structures, these are just basic build ups that mould into a sludgy monster with every passing second. Caged Bird, in my opinion is the best song to check out to know what the band is upto and that's only because this track sums up what the band is doing holistically. It's unusual, but some of the riffs and sections of the songs are very psychedelic without losing the heaviness of the instruments, it's very cleverly done as the band also adds edges of blackish gloves to their version of sludge.

An Apology to a Friend in Need, track #4 needs a special mention, it's the most Sabbath influenced track, the guitars are the most obvious, but looming the darkness underneath is that bass that blends in with the ongoing molecular decomposition of senses and it does, majestically. This level of detail and emphasis on the bass is quite a rarity, specially in this style of music. I should've got to this album sooner because the album in entirety is such a treat, it does not stick to the regular sludge/doom formula of putting out all anger together with a whole lot of harshness and feedback, this album gently builds itself through every song, every moment spent listening to the album is like an archaeological dig, you have absolutely no idea what will hit you, you suddenly find an acoustic interlude or the unannounced heaviness hits your head exploding the skull from within and is an absolute treat to your ears. All instruments and throats are in perfect harmony with each other, no single note or no single instrument is over-powering each other, they all exist harmoniously in the cruel storm of Stoneburner. Definitely one of the highlights of the year for me personally, because you don't see bands infusing sounds and thoughts with such ease as this one does and also writing something quite like this is taking metal music in general to the next available check point.