By: Phil Weller
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 31/03/2017
Label: Golden Antenna
A monsoon of riffs, from slow, knuckle-dragging doom moments to the
calculated chaos of Mastodon, spinning on a huge axis with their long, winding
loops, this album it hits you like a drug, freewheeling into your body.
“Tempest” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1). First Light
2). Smoke from Distant
Fires
3. Celebration of
Decay
4). Echo of Souls
5). Apparition
6). Hiraeth
7). Water Divides the
Tide
8). Metanoia
The Review:
Telepathy’s sound has always been monstrous.
With each release their raw, voracious and vicious sound has gained more and
more clarity, their ideas more expansive and forward thinking. Now, with Jaime
Gomez Arellano at the helm, they are a different beast entirely. The producer,
who can boast Ghost,
Opeth
and Paradise
Lost as notches on his bedpost, is exactly what the band need at
this point in time, and it will surely propel them to greater, more luxurious
stratospheres.
‘Smoke From Distant Fires’ instantly bombards
you with craggy, precipitous guitar work, cascading through the crystal clear
mix with a menacing intent. But if those opening explosions come across like ‘Times
of Grace’ era Neurosis, then they flaunt their lighter, airier
and more celestial side in later passages. This band has always prided itself
on their intelligently thought out and diligently executed musical contrasts.
So often do their dark, miserable skylines develop overhead only for blinding
rays of light to pierce through like faint hope and brighten the landscapes.
Throughout the track the contrasts are in constant conflict, a tug of war for
aural dominance throwing the song this way then that, and it makes the result
nothing short of evocative and spellbinding.
‘Celebration of Decay’ marries dislocated,
barbaric rhythms – something akin to post-metal having a seizure, but with
perfect timing – huge, mountainous chords that lumber like giants and hypnotic
diminuendos that drag you by the feet and pull you deeper into reverie. It is
in these quiet, reflective moments that voice recordings of astronauts looking
back down on Mother Earth can be heard. It’s apt for a band which has never
quite sounded like they were of this planet. The song’s title too, in today’s
climate, has an added poignancy to it.
‘Apparition’ flirts with black metal, with
warmongering blast beats and the rapidly picked guitars reverberating like they
were recorded in a vast, echoic cathedral. The sound is so huge it towers over
you, belittles you. ‘Water Divides The Tide’ meanwhile, is more forthright. A
monsoon of riffs, from slow, knuckle-dragging doom moments to the calculated
chaos of Mastodon,
spinning on a huge axis with their long, winding loops, it hits you like a
drug, freewheeling into your body.
It is an album, for all intents and purposes,
better experienced than anything. Be that in the flesh or sat in the dark with
their immersive compositions blaring through your headphones, painting vibrant
images in your imagination as they do, for the best effect I advise you stop
reading this review. Just listen.
“Tempest” is available to preorder/buy here
