Cometh the Storm by High on Fire
High on Fire frontman Matt Pike has called himself a warrior for his art. To anyone who has never heard his brutal rock ‘n’ roll, that assertion must seem pretentious. To anyone who has heard it—and has thus heard Pike growl, roar, and howl as if he’s both ready to kill and ready to die—it seems no more than the truth.
His battle cries roil the air once again on High on Fire’s ninth studio full-length, Cometh the Storm, which incorporates some ideas from Pike’s solo album, 2022’s Pike vs the Automaton, grants Kurt Ballou his fourth production gig with the band, and rigorously establishes drummer Coady Willis, who joined in 2021, as true successor to founding drummer Des Kensel.
A regular behind the kit for such bands as Melvins and Murder City Devils, Willis earns his keep within the first minute of “Lambsbread,” shifting between stomp and gallop with the power and ease of Max Verstappen taking one of Formula One’s nastiest curves.
Willis also synchronizes with Jeff Matz, whose work on bass is notably fluid, and whose recent study of Middle Eastern music gives this album “Karanlik Yol,” a sinuous dance on the bağlama, a Turkish stringed instrument. Pike isn’t on that track, but Matz’s exploration apparently bleeds into Pike’s more intricate guitar solos.
High on Fire doesn’t abandon simpler, shorter attacks: “The Beating,” from title to lyrics, is a Motörhead incitement to a melee massacre, and “Tough Guy” is a potently rumbling headbanger earthquake.
Yet no High on Fire collection would feel whole without longsword slashes like the title track, a six-minute tempest, or “Darker Fleece,” a ten-minute revel in Black Sabbathian sludge. Pike has occasionally spoken in interviews as if he’s chosen the strangest conspiracy theories to explain reality, but he yawps in High on Fire as if he’s cleaving skulls in twain. Cometh the Storm is a manifestation of his best dark side.
|
|
Get Cometh the Storm at Amazon here.
Paid link
