Bombus – The Poet & The Parrot (2013)
Album number 2 from Sweden’s Bombus sounds like a bearded psychopath prowling the woods by moonlight and howling at the wind. Walking the post-metal line ploughed by High on Fire, Baroness, Mastodon and Kylesa, ‘The Poet & The Parrot’ is both crushingly heavy and ethereal and spacey. Lashings and lashings of bass ride upon waves of tight grooves and some gargantuan riffs, and the band’s prog chops all the tunes to on a dime with one section birthing itself from another. Whilst much progressive metal has the capacity to disappear up its own complex-chord-progression-led ass. But here the Neurosis-esque interludes are kept to a minimum, whilst the stoner and doom elements of the band’s sound is cranked to the max. It’s a demanding album; but it’s also quite a gem.
‘Enter The Night’ is a punkier, more elemental Mastodon – the sound of something glorious but ugly being born. The title track has a glorious chug and takes all that is great in metal’s DNA in its gigantic, swirling roof: its brutally heavy, but also bounces its sonic bombast off some icey astral plates. ‘Into The Fire’ is Neurosis at their most metallic, a slow, tortured slab of music; whilst ‘Let Her Die’ features and explosive riff and booms out of the speakers with gothic majesty; and ‘Liars’ is a slow, eerie twisted little anthem whilst spirals off into some serious display of chops.
Like the very best bands in this genre, Bombus manage to write songs which simultaneously wield power and delicacy, beauty and the beast. Just when you thought a sub-genre was about to reach saturation point, Bombus serve up a killer blast of bestial, scorched heaviness.
Album number 2 from Sweden’s Bombus sounds like a bearded psychopath prowling the woods by moonlight and howling at the wind. Walking the post-metal line ploughed by High on Fire, Baroness, Mastodon and Kylesa, ‘The Poet & The Parrot’ is both crushingly heavy and ethereal and spacey. Lashings and lashings of bass ride upon waves of tight grooves and some gargantuan riffs, and the band’s prog chops all the tunes to on a dime with one section birthing itself from another. Whilst much progressive metal has the capacity to disappear up its own complex-chord-progression-led ass. But here the Neurosis-esque interludes are kept to a minimum, whilst the stoner and doom elements of the band’s sound is cranked to the max. It’s a demanding album; but it’s also quite a gem.
‘Enter The Night’ is a punkier, more elemental Mastodon – the sound of something glorious but ugly being born. The title track has a glorious chug and takes all that is great in metal’s DNA in its gigantic, swirling roof: its brutally heavy, but also bounces its sonic bombast off some icey astral plates. ‘Into The Fire’ is Neurosis at their most metallic, a slow, tortured slab of music; whilst ‘Let Her Die’ features and explosive riff and booms out of the speakers with gothic majesty; and ‘Liars’ is a slow, eerie twisted little anthem whilst spirals off into some serious display of chops.
Like the very best bands in this genre, Bombus manage to write songs which simultaneously wield power and delicacy, beauty and the beast. Just when you thought a sub-genre was about to reach saturation point, Bombus serve up a killer blast of bestial, scorched heaviness.
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