Sentiment

So I originally got this album presented to me round about its release date as this massive slab of death/doom, with an even more massive James Plotkin production and a distinctly American funeral doom/death sound similar to Loss. Though Asunder is a much better (in every way) representation of that sound. You know the type, with this characteristic, vaguely medieval, Mournful Congregation-esque sense of melody, plenty of guitar leads woven on top of beefy droning riffs that at the same time aren't too slow or too "funerary" (or should it be "funereal"?), and a distinctive "wilting" yet stoic, reserved and pensive mood. And a lot of sludge, especially in the production, with a raw, gritty and well, sludgy rumbling guitar sound and a lot of tastefully used feedback. I hadn't heard Asunder or anything that'd fit that sort of description before this album came out, except for maybe Loss, who, with their lack of rhythm guitars, are actually not a lot like that, but it definitely intrigued me. I mean, I loved sludge metal, Mournful Congregation and Loss back then, and I still do now, even more so, so why the hell wouldn't I also like Un? (By the way, that band name is balls.) The reviews I could find, from Metal Injection, Angry Metal Guy, Echoes and Dust and whatnot, were almost raving in how overwhelmingly positive they were - it's not the best pool of reference, sure, but it's still better than going in bareback - so I just had to check this out.

However, the title track, released by Translation Loss Records as an album teaser, surprisingly didn't sound a lot like Loss. Or quite as awesome as that description above or the reviews could make you think, leave that to Asunder. I think at first I sort of liked it and its leads, halfway between Warning and some airy post-metal, but it turned out to be the best track on the album. And even so, I grew progressively colder and colder to it anyway, but the album itself still turned out to be a massive disappointment.

Why? Well, it doesn't really have anything going for it besides those leads and a big fat production, which would be alright because Loss are awesome and don't even have proper rhythm guitars or a good drum sound, but even its best aspects manage to be underwhelming. First of all, the production, especially on the guitars. It's massive, loud and bassy all right, but... well, it's anything but sludgy. It's so grainy that each "grain" sounds like a separate note, and while there are probably some wild stoner/sludge/drone/funeral doomsters that might pull that off, here those "grains" are so thoroughly cleaned of any dirt and dust that they sound lifeless, synthetic and honestly not a lot like actual electric guitars at all. There's none of Asunder's grandiose gloom, Lycus' post-metal-like enshrouding blanket of sound, or, hell, even any half-decent sludge metal's raw garage charm here, and the closest comparison I can come up with is probably Pallbearer's latest (as of now) album, Heartless, except without the fuzz. I realize I'm harping on this too much and I probably sound like an old man with a bad case of raw-o-philia, but I just can't help it with this album. The other issue I have with the production is the loud, booming and flat sound of the snare drum, which sounds almost like a weird homage to Mournful Congregation's consistently awful snares.

Speaking of which, Un kind of sound like a less adventurous version of Mournful Congregation... except Mournful Congregation already sound like a less adventurous version of themselves since 2013 and still manage to be way more interesting than this, with their tasty acoustic bits, lead and bass work, and progressive rock influences. Sentiment, on the other hand, has none of that - it's a very simplistic, restrained, derivative and inoffensive album that sounds like the band were afraid of breaking any rules or going outside any boundaries, and in this kind of music, which almost depends on tiny nuances and bold songwriting, such restraint means nothing but mediocrity. Another thing they have in common with latter-day Mournful Congregation is a reliance on slow one-note chug riffs, which always make me think of a demented old man without teeth trying to tell a story only to forget what he was talking about and start telling his story all over again. So the guitarwork here is either that, the aforementioned minimalistic leads, or attempts to imitate Asunder's A Clarion Call that end up sounding just as rhythmic as the chugs, meandering and underdeveloped, and having none of the original's elegance and smooth even flow. In the end, I cannot remember a single thing off of Sentiment after multiple listens, except for the general sound of the album and the spaced-out chugs, which for some reason sound much better when it's Evoken or diSEMBOWELMENT doing them, and don't really fit the lighter melodic style that Un play.

I've already mentioned that the leads here sound quite a bit like Warning, and I think Patrick Walker's other project, 40 Watt Sun, specifically their debut The Inside Room, is a pretty nice comparison for Sentiment. It's also praised for its thick production and sense of melody, and I also cannot for the love of Pete Townshend get why people like it at all, let alone as much as they seem to. Except Sentiment hasn't become a modern classic just yet, of course, and instead of Pat Walker's disturbingly well-enunciated reedy wail, here we have Monte Mccleery's deep growls that actually sound professional, energetic, varied and overall pretty great. But of course, these are growls and they don't carry the music, so they alone cannot make the album great. And while The Inside Room had plenty of interesting bass work and nice drum licks with a funny "trash can" snare, the bass on Sentiment might as well not exist, while the drums are as bare-bones as they get, accompanying the chugs with the simplest of beats with no groove or, well, life to them. And actually, "bare-bones" a pretty nice adjective for all of Sentiment. Maybe I'm just not getting it yet, but even hard-to-understand funeral doom like Mournful Congregation, Skepticism, Esoteric and Asunder's Works Will Come Undone took less time to grow on me, and while in those bands I only heard potential and liked them more with each listen, with Sentiment it was the exact opposite of that. Listening to similar American bands like Usnea, Bell Witch and the aforementioned Asunder (I know I mention them a lot but I love them) has only made me like Sentiment even less and realize that this sort of doom has already been done much better by others, and listening to Un's own post-metal demos made me realize that they can (or at least could) do better as well.