Siege

Thematically and musically, The Slow Death’s Siege refuses to be a simple beast. Supplementing luscious artwork that appears like stop-motion film with huge themes of daily struggle and worldwide upheaval, the 4 lumbering songs mix the heaviest of metal with the most delicate of touches to form an epic journey over 63 minutes. Lying at the heart of each side of the aural, visual, and lyrical adventure is a tendency to mingle the familiar with the brand new and mix the traditional with the experimental. Thus the case of the artwork duplicates itself in the musical style and in the lyrics, as if someone had frozen The Slow Death in time at several moments and then somehow aligned those moments to happen all at once, forming the uncanny texture of the material here. Lest we forget, Siege took a full 6 years for the Australians to make, during which time they were recovering from the death of Gregg Williamson and welcoming his vocal replacement Gamaliel. The quintet’s fourth album bears all the marks of a work of art born from trouble.

In theory, The Slow Death play the form of doom death frequently dubbed “funeral”, due to the band’s extreme low pace and a tendency for songs to run over 10 minutes. However, the words themselves seem unhelpful in describing the sound, since the spaciousness and melody found on Siege bears as much similarity to post-rock as the thunderous acts associated with death metal, nor do the songs communicate the tortured misery common to funeral doom. Lighter even in general than the recent work of Funeral and Ahab, a billowing curtain of melody hovers in front of the low-tuned guitars and eventual crash of drums, softening the features of the conventional metal elements and removing much of the threat from the sound. The very gradual approach taken by Skepticism and Slow comes to mind, as the misty ambience dampens a usually crushing genre and disperses the harsh light of the higher lead guitar and the vocals, blending the instruments together with sheeny keyboard and piano that guitarist Stuart Prickett and vocalist Mandy Andreson both provide. Even when deliberately heavy riffs pulse along with Gamaliel’s trench-deep roars, everything seems to come from way back in the distance, seen through the translucent melodic veil in the foreground.

As creator of the symbolic artwork, as well as dominant with keys and her voice, Andreson plays a significant role in shaping Siege, floating through the music with a tone like a faraway Anneke van Giersbergen around the time of The Gathering’s Nighttime Birds and additionally smearing the oils smoother with prolonged organ and synth chords. Rarely does she use much power in her vocals, the echo effect in place to accord with the held notes of the other bandmembers, while the more forceful higher lines in 'Pestilence' fade almost to the background instead of presenting nearer than the crushing guitar chords. The same happens to Gamaliel when growling over thudding chugs and faster tremolos near the onset of 'Famine', the drums not even picking up to match the guitar’s pace, which rather robs the transition of impact, as if all this were happening in a dream, the mechanisms inscrutably hidden deep in the subconscious. This general absence of impact alters the feeling of any heaviness, almost like the planning, execution, and inevitable conclusion shown in the artwork’s battle were occurring simultaneously, with the final fate initially apparent and the whole experience oddly futile.

Consider for a moment that the album lasts for over an hour, and that the musical profile - though never static for long - remains mostly consistent. On the one hand, that’s just the way that slower music hooks you: it drags you into the repetitive melodies, lulls you with the gentleness of the whole thing, and then hits you with some unexpected transitions. Siege achieves that to some extent, since the broadness of the sound very rarely narrows, clean guitars and deceptively diverting melody lines taking over when the keys are less prominent, then particularly 'Famine' and 'Pestilence' altering the pace and intensity with some heavier sections, as well as at least a couple of more doomy passages in each song. 'Tyranny' summarizes the trend during the first 5 of its 19 minutes, arriving at the sunlight of a more energetic chug and guitar lead after building through the clouds of drifting keys and downbeat chords, yet avoiding any stark differences between sections. As the flipside to the hypnotic aspect of the album, Siege is troubled by a lack of distinctly focal moments. Much of the riffing feels nondescript, the keyboards and male vocals remain too isolated, and the guitar melodies only seep through after several listens, meaning that enjoyment undoubtedly necessitates quantities of patience.

Hence why albums of this ilk regularly present difficulties for reviewers, not in analysis, where Siege offers rich potential for discussion, but in assessment of quality. The detail evident in the twining instrumental strands of each song will sustain attentive and contemplative listeners throughout the whole album, yet the dreamlike external feel that manifests in the attitude of watching events unfold from outside may just as easily detach listeners from the action, which utilizes fresh dynamics a little too rarely to really make them count. It would be cynical to say that the songs are too long or that The Slow Death were unsure how to develop each piece, because the Australians have always been in the habit of designing gradual, enveloping experiences on each full-length, so perhaps we must return to these earlier words: Siege is a work of art born from - and not itself absent of - trouble.


Originally written for The Metal Observer - http://www.metal-observer.com/3.o/review/the-slow-death-siege/