“Everything has been invented that can be invented”--Charles H Duell, 1899
"Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible."--Simon Newcomb
"That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced."--Scientific American, January 2, 1909
"640KB ought to be enough for anyone"--Bill Gates, early 1980's
"Stoner metal is completely dead and redundant these days"--Some idiot a few weeks ago.
And, er, yes, that idiot may have been me, but at the time it just made so much damn sense. There's only so many ways you can write a slow and fuzzy pentatonic riff, and compared to the twin monoliths of Dopesmoker and Dopethrone so much of it is just painfully average; fun and goofy, perhaps, but completely unnecessary. It's the retro thrash of the doom genre, if you will.
But nature tends to have a way of slapping you around when you get a bit too confident about things, this being a good example. Black Hell's "How the Rest was Lost" probably doesn't quite match the power of Dopesmoker, true, but it's up there with Dopethrone and Holy Mountain, a massive and brilliantly done slab of proggy stoner doom, possibly the best release of any sort this year and maybe the best release of it's sort this decade. Seems that the fuzzy five note riff isn't dead yet.
The word that keeps coming to mind here is "epic". The songs tend to follow a linear progression, and there is perhaps a bit of post-metal love here; the mellow parts, while few, are vaguely reminiscent of Celestial-era Isis, and there's a general build towards moments of massive guitargasms and me swearing breathlessly. Moments would include the huge build and epic dual leads in the 13 minute epic Planet Maker, man, the solo at the 5 and a half minute mark pleases by stoner boner like few other bits of music have. Triumphant, devastating, glorious.. think of a superlative adjective and you can probably apply it here. Likewise, the huge crunching doom riff and feedback that closes out the album, the fast and furious leads and riffing in Storm over Jupiter, and Lycanthropy's general big riffing and fierceness. Whether they're building up to the next massive riff or bringing out the effects pedals and slowing things down the music is of a consistently high quality.
Hard to say much else really; this is a record that's both immediately entertaining but well worth repeated listens, a "fun" record that's still satisfyingly heavy. Well produced- when's the last time you've heard a bass play such a prominent role?- and damn, even the vocals aren't annoying when they come in! It's sort of hard to write this review; gushing rarely comes out well. However, this is a band that is worthy of a gushing review; I can't think of a single flaw, and I'm out of ideas in terms of ways to improve this. Mind-blowing, supremely excellent stoner doom; if you're a fan of this genre and don't have this, waste no time. Best stoner doom record since Sleep put out Dopesmoker however many years back, and a very likely choice for my Album of the Year.
