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ANGEL EYES  Something To Do With Death  CD   (Underground Communique)   11.98


In spite of all of the unimaginative Neurosis knockoffs that have crowding the metal underground lately, I'm still always trying to keep at least one ear to the ground for bands that are putting their own creative stamp on the epic sludge/instrumental metal sound, working to twist it into something different and interesting. It's happening less and less now that this sound has reached a kind of critical mass not seen since the death metal bubble of the early 1990's, but every once in a while I luck out and discover a band like Angel Eyes.

Angel Eyes came out with this excellent disc a while back that works within the framework of epic, melodic rock and crushing metallic slow-mo heaviness, but Something To Do With Death stands out with the eerie slide guitars and wintery haze of white noise that seem to drift down on all four songs on this disc. I'm kicking myself for not getting this disc in stock sooner, since it's been out for over a year now - this is an moody CRUSHER of an album, and we've been playing it nonstop all week here. Each of these monumental songs (around fifteen minutes long on average) builds from a brooding slow-burn of jangly minor key guitar strum and drums locked into simple marching rhythms, and slowly builds in power as sheets of distorted noise, intriguing dialogue samples, shafts of shimmering ambience and thick swirling clouds of industrial grit descend upon the majestic riffing. By the time that the second track "By The Time He Was My Age Orson Wells Had Made Citizen Kane" kicks into the crushing crescendo halfway through, it sounds yer hearing Mogwai and Neurosis fused together with a noise artist behind the mixing console, raining down corrosive distortion onto the grinding, downtuned metallic sludge, big riffs blossoming out of moody waltizing strum and vicious screams. The vocals are another thing that makes Angel Eyes stand out from the epic sludge metal/instrumental rock hordes...the singer only appears at a couple of points on the album and it's essentially all instrumental, but when he does start belting out his harsh, bestial screams, he reminds me of the singer from Envy but with the aggression levels through the roof. The rest of the music on Something To Do With Death follows the same path, moving from dreamy emotive jangle and layered ambience to monstrous metallic crush and caustic noise and passages of pounding tribal percussion saturated with dark shadows and eerie samples of a preacher rambling about the endtimes. This album kills, and those of you into the epic sludge/gazer heaviness of Mouth Of The Architect, Rosetta, Minsk, Isis, Mogwai, Tides and the emotive metallic 'core of bands like Page 99, Envy and Buried Inside gotta hear this.


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