Album Type: EP
Date Released:
17/02/2017
Label: Black Bow Records
“The Light
is From Below” DD track listing:
1).
Shrine of Misery
2).
Translunary
3).
Hypernova
4).
Vacant Mass
The Review:
After
my sixth or seventh uninterrupted listen of "The Light is From Below",
I almost feel like I can invoke words to properly explain what kind of magic
lies within.
Perhaps
I measure too much? Sulking over my illuminated keyboard in a poorly lit room,
slack-jawed from a day of dealing with life's responsibilities and managing the
expectations of others takes its grinding toll. That's where my ritualistic
evening reprieve takes form in the sonic conjuring of doom warlocks Grim Ravine.
Having been somewhat familiar to this outfits output; the self-titled EP, I was
looking forward to hearing what came next.
Hair
standing on the back of my neck, chills running from my shoulders across my
chest, down my spine and grounding out into the floor is what came next.
The
jarring intro to the album's opening track, "Shrine of Misery"
makes you appreciate the ability this band has in composing with a long-form
sensibility. Imagine a mud-slicked boulder, ripped loose by a torrential
downpour and falling ever so destructively towards the bottom of a (forgive the
obvious pun) ravine. The bassists tone flash like piano stabs under solar
flares of guitar omnipresence. This is the doom of colors, textures and
dynamics. Rasped, gasping guttural and freq-sweeping vocalist Gareth Nutbeen
holds the listener present by not commanding your ears attention, rather
demanding it. They've found the frequency balance here and it's a boulder toss
by a behemoth in terms of production nuance in comparison to the first EP. Hats
off to whatever entity focused this.
As
the first track settles down, a moment of bleak dynamics and mood-setting takes
form in "Translunary". We are met with a hypnotic bass melody
accompanied by the unsettling, glistening drips and cavern breaths of eerie
presence, ripped roughshod with an intro
that sounds like your high school hippie art teacher having his head smashed
into the glass bed of his overhead projector, then the third track "Hypernova"
explodes into orbit. A mid-tempo affair, this one rolls like blood down an
Orc's maw, only to pause and stretch, intermingle with battle sweat and spittle
and drop to the mud. Once again, the sweeping sonic overlays and delicate
production nuance don't exist to prove their existence, rather to add to it.
Same is true for the singers' addition to this frenzy- he's not there to stand
out on the battlefield as an aural target, more of an all- encompassing entity.
As this track seizes and contorts to its inevitable demise, I find myself
almost wanting to hit repeat to get dragged through once more. The drummers
percussive balance sits solidly where it should, no diddling, noodling or
gymnastics- a solid frame to hold this all up. It's a lot to hold, mind
you.
The
fourth and final track, "Vacant Mass" rises from the depths
of a feedback-induced droning lament. It then takes form, with vocal cues and
then lifts off with the percussive timing and weight of exactly what the song
is called, a mass rises and lifts. Somewhere around the 3 minute mark of this,
you feel like you've reached a plateau of experience only to be jarred and
shifted in other directions midway through minute 4. Not up or down, just
outwards in all directions simultaneously. Halfway through this almost 13
minute affair, the entire mass explodes and you're made to tumble downwards on
the monolithic shards of audio landscape. Just as you become familiar with the
sense of melody or riff in this new spot, the song drops out and pans back to
show you the vast space around you. Consumed by the experience laid from the
beginning, they cleverly step you back from all of that and let you gain a
sense of relative ease. To be charged and blasted once again into
oblivion.
Thanks
Grim Ravine. You are an anomaly in it's purest definition. I can't describe
your sounds succinctly enough to give them their due justice or proper praise.
For me, that's probably the best compliment I can give. Perhaps I measure too
much?
“The Light is From Below” will be available from 17th
February 2017
