By: Jay Hamphsire
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 06/072018
Label: The Great Barrier Records
The shorter form sees Bongripper keep things lean with ‘Terminal’,
losing none of their signature heft, brutal tone or hypnotic, meditative sway,
gaining an unconstrained momentum and razor edged focus that cannot be denied.
“Terminal” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1). Slow
2). Death
The Review:
Chicago’s
Bongripper are the doom bands’ doom band. For nearly
fifteen years they’ve waged a campaign of sonic terror and aural battery that
has won respect and admiration from fans and other artists alike. Their
long-form, instrumental tirades are at once crushingly heavy and achingly
melancholic, often wandering off into ethereal lightness. Seventh full length ‘Terminal’ is no exception.
First
things first, yes, by their own lofty standards, ‘Terminal’ is relatively breezy. Weighing in at around 40 minutes,
it’s removed from the epic crawls of the hour plus ‘Satan Worshipping Doom’, ‘Miserable’
and ‘Hippie Killer’. But this
comparable brevity serves the band incredibly well; split into the roughly
equal halves of ‘Slow’ and ‘Death’, the record is a distillation of
everything at which Bongripper excel,
namely heaving atmospherics and incalculable numbers of riff.
‘Slow’ broods with synth before building
feedback like a swelling thunderhead, Daniel O'Connor’s massive kick strikes a
focal point amid the growing intensity. They tease the drop, keeping you
waiting, before it falls in like a basement ceiling. Droning, grinding chords
shift like plate tectonics, riffs changing organically and inexorably before
things fade out into a wistful, drifting clean guitar chime. Layer by layer, the
band construct this wearied groove, rising further and further, spurred by the
guiding force of Ronald Petzke’s driving bassline. When the ‘heavy’ comes back
in, it’s suffocatingly dense, inhabiting all possible aural space, the single
locked in chords raining down like hammer blows as a guitar overlay drenched in
reverb spirals off into the void. It’s towering, climactic stuff. But the
‘ripper ain’t finished with you yet.
As
the first track bleeds into ‘Death’
with creeping static and roiling synths, before the second song asserts
dominance with a swaggering riff that steadily dredges deeper and deeper,
slowing, bloating and staggering amidst pounding toms. The band show canny use
of negative space, before earth shattering kicks ushering a rolling mid-tempo
groove and needling guitar overlay that comes right out of left field. Back
into their original dredging groove, any sense of comfort or familiarity is
whipped away once more by a strident, sludgy guitar gallop, tight triplets
descending into throbbing feedback. Uniting once more into hammerblow chords, Nick
Dellacroce and Dennis Pleckham conjure a steadily maddening atonal guitar duel
that rides the waves of unstoppable drums.
The shorter form sees Bongripper keep things lean with ‘Terminal’, losing none of their signature heft, brutal tone or hypnotic, meditative sway, gaining an unconstrained momentum and razor edged focus that cannot be denied. Perfectly crafted, and well worth the four year wait.
The shorter form sees Bongripper keep things lean with ‘Terminal’, losing none of their signature heft, brutal tone or hypnotic, meditative sway, gaining an unconstrained momentum and razor edged focus that cannot be denied. Perfectly crafted, and well worth the four year wait.
