the Blind Philosopher : "Innergazer"

 

This album came recommended by Dead Air at the Pulpit, who is already calling this their album of the year. A pretty bold statement. Given the tastes of that site, I am expecting this to be crusty, but it sounds more like old Mastodon. Proggy but sludgey in its grooving take on melodic death metal that has no shortage of guitar solos. The coarse howls of the vocal another element of sludge in play. The production is not as raw as I would expect from this either. There are some catchy riffs, and they are good at what they do. A tension comes out of the ambiance used to introduce  "As the Sirens Sing", while this is well-done atmospheric death metal, I am not convinced this is an album of the year quality quality when it comes to the songwriting. Descending into blast beats is not helping that argument. Though to their credit, they find riffs with purpose on this one as well. 

"Burn" feels like an extension of the previous song as it builds into furious double bass. But is it better than what we heard Neurosis crank out earlier this year? You will now hear the cries of saying music is not a competition, but this is not true; it is competing for your time, and what you give your time to is what you value most. There are only twenty-four hours in a day, and you are going to sleep at the very least for four of them, six of them in my case, so that leaves 20- to 18 waking hours a day to listen to music. So, prioritizing that time is a battle. "Downpour" continues the sludgey drone that hsi driven by impressive drumming, but when it comes to the songwriting, you have three songs in a row working off a similar sound and mood. 

"Sand of Seas' thankfully breaks this up. But it is an interlude rather than a song. Once again, the drummer takes the spotlight going into " Into the Redness of the Sun," which is a rather frantic assualt that ebbs back down. I can see where someone might be impressed by this and a bit blinded by how similar the riffs on this album are.  Some more Mastodon-like tricks creep in here. The eight-minute title track closes the album. There is a Meshuggah-like tone to the guitar that rumbles up from the beginning. It carries a more deliberate stomp. The drummer is impressive, and they have created an album that sounds great, but I am going to give this album an 8.5, as it's not the most original thing I've heard and they tend to be a bit of a one-trick pony when it comes to their brand of throbbing death sludge, but perhaps that is what you want if so they are good at it, but this is far from album of the year material when you take into consideration the more daring albums delivered by the likes of Portrayal of Guilt, Deathgrave, Show Me the Body and Neurosis alreaddy this year. 

pst335