Lesser Glow : "Nullity"

Being a band from Boston must be rough as you have to sort through all the Berklee kids who know all these time signatures , but not how to put them into a song that people want to listen. This is also the second band I have reviewed today that is from the Mastodon school of thought . The first was the new Barishi, which you would like if you like these guys though they are more death metal, where these guys are more sludge and employ bursts of clean singing .The clean singing doesn't click for me until the third song "Fostering this Nullity". It is also darker and more brooding which works. They are more concern with the math of it all on the first couple of song that run together.  the second song sound just like an extension of the first song which makes since in my mind as this is  the kind of band that would have 7 minute songs . To their credit they only have two of these , the title track being one of them.

"Alone In the Column" is an song that feels like the further progression of one before it. It is moody and in places makes me think of Dredg.  They get heavier on "Versterven". The haze of fuzzed out guitar is layered more like shoe gaze than metal. It's a better sound than it is a song. It is the band's more melodic vocals that seems to be the key for song writing clicking. Even when they get into something as ethereal as "I am the Island". It's dark with the guitar creating a drifting mist of chords. By the time we get to "the Great Filter" things have run together for me. I have to listen for the sun vocals to tell the songs apart. The gloomy vocals at the beginning give the song more character than the growled ones. There is a hint of Alice In Chains to the way the vocal melodies fall.

The last song kind of rumbles out with more of a sludge chug, but as a long is less defined than the ones on the first half of the album. I can appreciate the surreal shoe gaze like quality, but it begins to become uniform.  Over all I will give this album an 8 as I think they succeeded in what they set out to do and the vocals make them a little more interesting than your average band attempting this. This comes out May 29th on Pelagic Records.

Lesser Glow : " Ruined"

The clean vocals don't really fall any trends, the closest thing would be Mastodon as they are sung by have some grit to them like the kind of soulful bellow Troy Sanders typically utters.The growls have conviction to them as well. Riff wise this feels more like sludge than doom. There is more of an angular slant to "Vacant Throne" the vocals are more yelled out on the verse. When the clean vocals come in they have a more tender touch to the croon. "Tel Meggido" starts off with sung vocals in a way that would make me think of Sevendust if it was not for the angular dissonance in the riff that follows. The atmosphere over this almost reminds me of Ulcerate. Though I can also hear traces of Neurosis. So this is more like pre-"Blood Mountain" Mastodon.

Angular is their thing and they do it with a dark slink. The harsh vocals return to narrate "Empty Eyes" which seems to be about turning friends to foes. When they lock into a chug it gives them the same kind of sludge power that Tombs sometimes taps into. "Under the Polar Shade" doesn't find it self until the clean vocals come in, before that it kinda drags out a bunch of riffs and thrown them around without having any clear cut connection.

I'll give this album an 8. I like how it's angular and melodic. I think the last song gets off to a rough start but gets better. I don't see myself personally getting a ton of play out of this album though it does continue to grow on my the more I listen to it this morning.I did reference Mastodon over the course of the review and while they might be an influence, these guys are not just a tribute band , though they exist in a similar sonic space as the Atlanta band's earlier work. So if you miss older Mastodon, these guys don't have the raw punk traces that were in Mastodon's early albums , but take into in a similar maze.