By: Richard Maw
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 26/04/2019
Label: eOne Heavy
Not many bands would attempt something so daring
and varied. Of course, not many bands are anywhere near as good as Lord Dying,
so try this one out and expand your taste. Excellent.
“Mysterium
Tremendum” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1. Envy The End
2. Tearing At The Fabric Of Consciousness
3. Nearing The End Of The Curling Worm
4. The End Of Experience
5. Exploring Inward
6. Severed Forever
7. Even The Darkness Went Away
8. Freed From The Pressures Of Time
9. Lacerated Psyche
10. Split From A World Within/Devoid Of Dreams/Death The Final Loneliness
11. Saying Goodbye To Physical Form
The Review:
Lord Dying are back and Portland's finest have not
run out of riffs and hunger just yet! The first thing that hit me when I
pressed play was the sound- thick, muscular, meaty and absolutely spot on for
this sludge/metal mash up. Sitting somewhere between Mastodon, High On Fire, Death Angel
and Jethro
Tull (!?) this record has a surprising amount of variation, not to
mention light and shade. “Envy The End”
will get your head banging at any volume, mind, and after that opening the
album has more twists and turns than a sidewinder.
The Doors-esque “Tearing at the Fabric of Consciousness” is just one of the
curve-balls here; it's dark and quiet and pretty different to what you might
find on the average sludge release. As the record progresses, the band runs the
gamut from quieter almost folky moments to thrash riffage and the heaviest of
sludge metal. The vocals are just as changeable- clean singing, more metal type
singing and screams/growls.
The
eleven tracks on offer clip by, being as the song lengths are pretty varied- no
formulaic writing here, so instead there is a real mixture of light and heavy.
The quiet loud dynamic has worked for the greatest metal bands you can name, so
Lord Dying
are onto something here. The life/death concept is a good one for the band to
explore and gives them latitude with the arrangements; lots of instrumental
sections and some pretty psychedelic sections throughout the album are welcome
additions to the Lord Dying's approach here.
As
a concept album, a track by track is a little pointless and would perhaps spoil
the experience for the listener as this is an album to be experienced as a
whole or at the very least in track list order. Suffice it to say that most
heavy music fans will find something they like here; it covers a lot of ground
and approaches (often even in one song) and ranges from the very pretty (“Freed From The Pressures of Time”) to
the whimsical to the more extreme metal you might have expected.
“Mysterium
Tremendum”
is a vast work and is not what I really expected at all- and is all the better
for it. Not many bands would attempt something so daring and varied. Of course,
not many bands are anywhere near as good as Lord Dying, so try this one out and
expand your taste. Excellent.
“Mysterium Tremendum” is
available HERE
