Album Type: Full Length
Date Released:
17/03/2017
Label: Independent |
Vendetta
Vendetta
“This is music that is deeply rooted in
darkness that still somehow manages to be transcendent and uplifting. If you liked the incredible
promise presented by “A Spell for the Death of Man”, this album
exceeds it in every way. This is great metal, full stop.”
“Hope
Attrition” DD track listing:
1).
Unending Call of Woe
2).
No Blood Has Honor
3).
A Distant Epitaph
4).
The Din of the Mourning
5).
The Ones We Lost
6).
Drown Us with Greatness
7).
Abject in Defeat
The Review:
USBM
has always been an interesting subgenre characterization for me. I have
generally been of the school that geographies aren't exactly the most robust
way to define a sound in a heavily globalized world. Labels like 'Cascadian',
while lyrical and evocative, certainly extend beyond a specific geospatial
location. Like all things boxed and categorized, we need to remind ourselves
that while topographies may inspire certain sonic landscapes, the map
is seldom the territory. Which is a very roundabout way of bringing me to the
point that I do feel like there is something idiosyncratic in black metal that
is made in America
Woe's “A Spell for the Death of Man”
was a standout for me when released, and partially for these reasons, this
was band that, for lack of a better description, sounded like themselves.
Yes, you can hear their influences. Yes, you can see where the alchemy
underpinning some of their ideas. But already in this debut, you can hear
musicians keenly aware without fabricated neurosis of being overly
self-conscious or possessed by self-conceit. They aren't trying or aiming for
anything beyond that, and the results are savage and excellent. “Alone
with our Failures” and “Wake in Mourning” are emblematic of
this strong identity and musicianship. The promise of A Spell
continued to bloom in sophomore effort “Quietly”, undramatically, but seemed
to stagnate slightly in “Withdrawal”, which felt a little
attenuated and listless by comparison. I can happily state that “Hope
Attrition” is several steps beyond the debut and follow-up
albums in both maturity and compositional excellence.
I
have written a couple of times before on this blog about the importance of
album cohesion, and this album has it in spades. Album opener “Unending
Call of Woe” offers thick, mildly dissonant riffing, serving as the
perfect introit for the conflagration that follows it. “No Blood Has Honor” has
gone already as a song of the year pick for me, and I do not see it being
bumped off the list. Anthemic, relentless, instantly memorable, it is the peak
of an excellent album. “A Distant Epitaph” is a perfectly
mournful acoustic interlude, but painfully short, given how beautiful it is. I
would have liked to have seen this fleshed out a little more. Throughout the
album, the raging but sorrowful melodicism of the second track sees
expression in a variety of songs, which leads me to that strangest of black
metal paradoxes: music that is deeply rooted in darkness that still somehow
manages to be transcendent and uplifting. Leave it to black metal that emerged
from New Jersey and grew up in New York
