• Home

Aural Aggravation

Exploring the sound of the underground
Stay updated via RSS

  • Recent Posts

    • Yur Mum – Black Rainbow
    • Petrol Hoers – Fulford Arms, York 17th January 2021
    • Weekend Recovery – False Company
    • solarminds – Her Spirit Cracked the Sky
    • Legion of Swine – The Noise Never Abates
  • Archives

    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
  • Categories

    • Albums
    • Films and Documentaries
    • Interviews
    • Live
    • Previews and Editorial
    • Recommended Streams and Videos
    • Reviews
    • Singles and EPs
  • Categories

    • Albums
    • Films and Documentaries
    • Interviews
    • Live
    • Previews and Editorial
    • Recommended Streams and Videos
    • Reviews
    • Singles and EPs
  • Meta

    • Register
    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.com

Hundred Year Old Man – Breaching

Posted: 20 March 2018 in Albums
Tags: Album Review, Breaching, Doom, Genre Crossover, Gizeh Records, Hardcore, Heavy, Hundred Year Old Man, Metal, Post-Metal, Shoegaze, Sludge, Stoner, Wolves & Vibrancy Records
0

Gizeh Records (LP/CD) / Wolves & Vibrancy (LP)

27th April 2018

Their BandCamp profile describes Hundred Year Old Man as ‘an Ambient Post-Sludge Metal band’. If this sounds like a strange, if not near-inconceivable combination of genres, what it all comes down to is the fact that this is some slow, heavy shit. Breaching is the six-piece’s debut album, and follows single release ‘Black Fire’ (which features here, along with ‘Disconnect’ from the same release) and the ‘Rei’ EP.

While there’s been a constant deluge of slow, sludgy metal that’s seemingly been increasing in volume in recent years, Hundred Year Old Man set their stall out early as a band keen to push the parameters, and with Breaching, they reveal the full range of their ambition and their capacity to conjure spectacularly heavy music with unusual range. So, while it is some slow, heavy shit, it’s not all slow, or heavy.

That range isn’t simply musical, tonal, textural, or about tempo – although they cover all of those bases – but, unusually for a band in their bracket, vocally. Yes, a throat-wrecking upper-range howl, strained and painful is the dominant delivery, which contrasts well with the general leaning toward an excess of distorted, low-end grind, but there’s more guttural growl in the mix and even moments of melody. And, for all of the overdrive and afterburn as mangled chords resonate for an eternity around the caverns of purgatory, there are moments of breathtaking beauty, shafts of light which beam from the heavens and illuminates a very different aspect of the doomy space the band create.

Against a droning, rumbling swell of sound, a distant voice howls in anguish: the title track makes for a lengthy intro that builds a dark smog. It isn’t until ‘Black Fire’ crashes in with its full-weighted guitar trudge and thunderous percussion, and the volume shoots up by at least fifty per cent that things really get going. And once it gets going, it keeps going, for eleven minutes. It’s ample time to deliver a whole world of crushing riffage.

It’s their use of dynamics that really make HYOM such a refreshing proposition: they’ve got so much more than a single template, meaning that while Amenra and Neurosis may be obvious reference points, they only provide a fraction of the measure of what they do, and Jesu could perhaps provide a valid touchstone also.

Muffled samples echo in quiet spaces and linger in the corners where shadows shuffle and linger among elongated drones and sustain sculpted into magnificent shapes. ‘Disconnect’ brings vaporous, shoegazey contrails of guitar which drift and drape over the slow-melting rhythm section before the overdrive kicks in, along with the anguished vocals.

Just short of four minutes into the nine-minute ‘Long Wall,’ the pace picks up and the guitar kicks into a juggernaut chugger riff, and a few bars later, the volume spikes and the whole thing thunders forward at pace. There’s an almost hardcore edge to the track’s battering drive and relentlessly angry thrust, but beneath the blistering assault, there’s grace and melody to be found in the layered guitars, scaling upwards to soaring cathedrals of sound in the closing couple of minutes.

The album’s final cut, the ten-minute ‘Ascension’ is a softer, more delicate – and ultimately optimistic and redemptive – composition that, despite the snarling, spat vocals, leads the way toward the light. It rounds off an immense and immersive hour which balances beauty and brutality to forge a quite specific niche in the sphere in which Hundred Year Old Man dwell.

AA

HYOM_LP_Album_FINAL

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Watch: ‘Voodoo Death’ by Walthar the Unbearable of Evil
Autumn – Chandelier

Blog at WordPress.com.
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
%d bloggers like this: