By: Ernesto
Aguilar
Album Type: Full Length
Date
Released: 07/07/2017
Label: Dead Truth
Recordings |
Southern
Druid Records
Ether succeeds
at being a heterogeneous strain in the sludge metal pool and how that works for
you largely depends on how you like your music, but for those music fanatics
who want something quite original in their heavy music. Ether delivers this,
and more.
"There is Nothing Left for Me Here" CS//CD//DD//LP track listing
1.
For Every Nail a Noose
2.
We are the Empty Vessel Where Life Used to Grow
3.
Inextricably Bound By The Absence of a Ring
4.
No Gods, All Masters
5.
The Burden of Trust
6.
Coke Rope
7.
Ava Maria of the Lice, of the Snakes, of the Worms
8.
The Burden of Hope
9.
Fleas of a Rat
The Review:
Can
being hard to categorize go wrong? There's something fun to being musically
irascible. Yet genres exist for a reason. Enter Ether, which makes a strong case
for both sides of that debate.
The
Florida band
issued an excellent new album, "There
is Nothing Left for Me Here," in July. Since then, that release has
bubbled just below the surface, winning kudos for its imaginative composition
and high quality arrangement. This heavy-based quintet – most of Ether's
members come from the hardcore band Remembering Never – takes many innovative
liberties, as well as incorporates its strongest influences. Ether
succeeds at being a heterogeneous strain in the sludge metal pool. How that
works for you largely depends on how you like your music.
To
be most direct, what makes "There is
Nothing Left for Me Here" such an experience is not just that it has
disparate takes within Ether's musicianship. There are several
instances where the album feels downright contradictory to what you heard the
song before, or even 30 seconds previous in the same track. "For Every Nail a Noose," Ether's opener, gets a prelude with a sample
of the voice of jazz/blues icon Billie Holiday, layered with noise rock and
fuzz. However, the song is a heady and harrowing hardcore journey for its first
minute, until it evolves just after that first minute into a progressive/doom
sort of rhythm,, with clean singing, before building back into a heavy groove
at about four minutes, then back – with a stringed lead-in – at about six
minutes through to the earlier prog blueprint. "We Are the Empty Vessel" has one changeup like this too.
Meanwhile, "Inextricably Bound by
the Absence of a Ring" gets a moody, slightly folky treatment, with
strings and an off-kilter tempo, before jumping into a post-rock and hardcore
inflected "No Gods, All
Masters." Next cut, "The
Burden of Trust," is a slow, pensive instrumental. Get it? There is a
great deal about "There is Nothing
Left for Me Here" that resists expectations of the sludge/doom
categories Ether
finds itself in.
Needless
to say, there is a portion of the heavy music fan base that will greatly
dislike Ether's
unconventional approach to its album, since songs might feel like they lack
consistency. Listening more deeply, though, the common threads, such as Daniel
Burger's skillful work on the drums and the range of instruments (band member
take credit for the gong, violin and toy piano as well as the usuals), are
certain to reel in those music fanatics who want something quite original in
their heavy music. Ether delivers this, and more.
You
catch embers of acts like Neurosis and Type O Negative in the last
third of the album. "Ava Maria of
the Lice, of the Snakes, of the Worms"
cedes its post-metal riffs after three minutes to a corrosive, slow burn of
intense vocals and swirling guitars. This is one of the more estimable cuts on
the release. "The Burden of
Hope" returns to the brooding instrumentation of earlier, then flows
into "Fleas of a Rat."
With a post-metal aesthetic, the track, and so much of
what Ether
does, feels ahead of its time.
"There is Nothing
Left for Me Here" is available here
