Samothrace, Reverence to Stone
5July 9, 2012 by hhbrady
Blackened, sludgy doom, not unlike Unearthly Trance and/or Indian… with a bit more narrative/ song structural cohesion….
Reverence to Stone is the Black Herald, is what the burning bush sounded like, or The Horns of Jericho….
THIS: is God Come Down, Making Himself Known, in Fury and Disgust. Play it as loud as you can and tell me I’m wrong.
There’s two tracks: “When We Emerged,” and “A Horse of Our Own,” each quite long, each unspeakably detuned…. There is much feedback, much extended sounding of the lowest chord (and this one a fifth) on the guitar….
What if you actually got to hear the Music of the Spheres and it was unspeakably ugly to you? Does that mean you were messed up? Does that mean there was something wrong with you?
And what if it were still attractive in this ugliness…?
This is as close and perfect a marriage of doom and sludge metal as you’ll ever hear… with black metal officiating the ceremony via the vocals… there’s almost no tempo oftentimes, just a pulse to guide you through the auditory wreckage….
Chemical guide to listening©: this is stoner music, by way of general antidepressants (say, SSRIs or some such)….
“When We Emerged,” at 10 minutes, manages to sound like a doom metal version of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 (you’ve heard it)– in that it could be an auditory version of the composer’s wife’s orgasm (as was Barber’s, allegedly)….
[...] in the absence of my having got my arse in gear to properly digest the new one, you can read Sawtooth Wave‘s take on it, if that’s what you are [...]
Love the artwork too and that clearly Samothrace wasn’t just a cool-sounding word to them…
I admit with chagrin that I only know the word “Samothrace” because of the “Winged Victory” statue (aka its French name) and had to look up to what you were referring; although after this I agree it does seems pretty cool. This subtle patient literacy reminds me of Salome for some reason.
Welcome back (jazz -related posts aside). You lucky bugger getting your hands on this. I have been HAMMERING Life’s Trade this week. I think I listened to it 3 or 4 times back to back just today. How do the two records stack up? I think Life’s Trade is quite beautiful by the way – does that make me fucked up?
Thanks! Again with the chagrin: I’d never heard Samothrace before; I am streaming it now…. [And yes, it makes you "fucked up," but in this day and age, you're psychotic if you're not so....]