Album Type: Full Length
Date Released:
13/01/2017
Label: Independent
Radiant Knife plays
the sort of sludge-infused progressive metal popularized by fellow southerners Mastodon,
but play the style very much in their own way.
Their self-titled debut is packed with inventive song structures and
trampling riffs that are underscored by a strong sense of melody. It is an
exciting debut from a band with a lot of promise.
“Radiant
Knife” CS//DD track listing:
1). Choose your necrodestination
2). Vacant faces
3). Haze
4). Emotional Wastelands
5). Shedding Black
6). The Lude
The Review:
While
guitar and drum duos with scrappy production have managed to stay in style
since The White
Stripes released their debut album almost twenty years ago, very few
of them have wandered into the musical territory of Louisiana-based band Radiant Knife. The
band plays the sort of sludge-infused progressive metal popularized by fellow
southerners Mastodon, but Radiant Knife play the style very much in their own way.
The grimy production of their self-titled debut brings out a coarseness in the
songs that is absent from the sleekly produced albums by the Mastodons and the Baronesses of the
world.
The
track “Choose Your Necrodestination”, a synth laden instrumental full
of thumping guitar riffs and alien atmosphere, opens the album. The track is
followed by the significantly more somber “Vacant Spaces”, which features an
understated, morose melody and culminates with a slow, grinding riff that is
one of the most memorable moments on the album. Radiant Knife increase their tempos and their onslaught
with rapid fire riffing and thunderous vocals on “Haze”. This burst of
hostility is nicely contrasted by the album’s following track, “Emotional
Wastelands”, which rings with joyous grooving, falsetto vocals and is
certainly the most fun track anywhere on the album.
Radiant
Knife
clearly enjoy orchestrating sudden departures, again leaning into contrasting
feelings with their next track, the nine minute and thirty-four second long “Shedding
Black”. The darkest, most despairing track on the debut, “Shedding
Black” is loaded with chiming dissonances, washy guitar tones, harsh
riffs and dramatic dynamic contrast. The album ends on the track “The
Lude”, which is similar in mood to the earlier track “Vacant
Faces”. Calm and solemn, “The Lude” roars and rumbles its way
to the album’s end. Radiant Knife’s self-titled debut is packed
with inventive song structures and trampling riffs that are underscored by a
strong sense of melody. It is an exciting debut from a band with a lot of
promise.
