Album Type: Full
Length
Date
Released: 13/05/2016Label: Season of Mist
I think more than anything ‘Pleiades’ Dust’ has shown me the
absolute absurdity of the expectations we’ve set for Gorguts. ‘Pleiades’ Dust’ is a great album and what it lacks in song
writing hooks, it makes up for with brooding musical atmosphere and crafting an
engaging, emotional journey.
‘Pleiades’
Dust’ CD//LP//DD track listing:
1.
Pleiades’ Dust
Gorguts is:
Luc
Lemay | Guitar, Vocals
Colin
Marston | Bass
Kevin
Hufnagel | Guitar
Patrice
Hamelin | Drums
The Review:
Everyone
reading this knows what Gorguts is all about. No one is, or should be reading this review as their introduction to Gorguts. Gorguts
completely decimated the standards for what death metal is or could be in 1998,
when they released ‘Obscura’. The
album was a jangled, contorting audio nightmare. Since then, every release has
had to meet a completely unfair standard, and yet they have matched it in spite
of this. The world levies heavy expectations upon Gorguts, and they meet or exceed them every single time.
‘Pleiades’ Dust’, is a one song album. I
say album, because its thirty three minutes long and it’s pressed on an LP and
sold at the cost of a full length album, so I can’t call it an EP, no matter
what the reasoning is. The obvious question with a band as beloved and
respected as Gorguts is always going to be “how does it stack up to their
best material?”, to which the best answer I can give is “reasonably
well”. On the whole, this album is going to make “Obscura to present” Gorguts fans very happy, and I too am very happy with
the album as a whole.
What
I can’t help but shake is the feeling that this album is missing those big,
impactful moments. Or maybe that the album’s “big, impactful moments” just don’t resonate or stick to the memory
banks as well as they have before. ‘Obscura’
and ‘From Wisdom to Hate’ are loaded
with riffs that burrowed their way into your brain and stay there forever.
There isn’t really any one moment that sticks in my brain from ‘Pleiades’ Dust’ that has gotten its
claws in me the way the opening moments of “Le Toit du Monde” or “An
Ocean of Wisdom”. There isn’t really a moment as devastatingly heavy as the
back half of “Forgotten Arrows”.
I
think more than anything ‘Pleiades’
Dust’ has shown me the absolute absurdity of the expectations we’ve set for
Gorguts. I
caught myself feeling disappointed in a great
album, which is fucking ridiculous on my part. And ‘Pleiades’ Dust’ is a
great album. What it lacks in song writing hooks, it makes up for with brooding
musical atmosphere and crafting an engaging, emotional journey. I just wish it
was easier to point specific moments and say “you don’t want to miss this!”
or “this
riff at ?:?? is going to be with me ‘til the day I die!”. But I can’t.
Still, it’s a beautiful blur while it’s happening.
