Style: Progressive Black Metal (mixed vocals)
Review by: Callum
Country: Australia
Release date: February 19, 2021
It’s difficult for a band to establish a truly unique aesthetic these days. I have to hand it to Spire, their sound on Temple of Khronos captures this god of time-worshipping (fearing?), druid-preaching psychedelia and runs with it. They drape their eerie, foreboding, and hooded ambiguity across the familiar dirge of black metal but with the addition of sci-fi villain vocal delivery that drives an interesting narrative. The record is a compendium of ‘hymns’ save for the opening ambient track that immediately establishes the anxiety-inducing nature of the album with the sound of a ticking clock and slowly building chaotic noise.
The hymns have very subtle distinguishing features, for better or worse. While it’s often difficult to establish where you are in the record because of those similarities, the album flows very well otherwise. The rhythm is consistently driven forward by deep pounding drums and thick bass occupying the lion’s share of the low-end. The drums control this rhythm tightly through well executed transitions and tempo changes, which play well with the temporal theme of the album. Up in the high-end, dual guitars spider their way around the fretboard. One pumps out typical black metal tremolo picks while the other lays dissonant, jagged chords over top. There aren’t so many musically outstanding moments to note. The instrumentation is mostly effective, from driving the chaotic blasts of ‘Hymn III – Harbinger’, to building out the expansive atmospheres in ‘Hymn II – Tormentor’ and the interlude ‘Antithesis’.
The vocals make this album. The music is as dark and heavy as it needs to be but it doesn’t push many boundaries on its own. From the first hymn, throat-sung drones drop in over Magma-style Gojira chugs and kick drums. The drones and chanting continue throughout as if sung by the priests of the temple themselves. Slowly throughout the album more vocal styles are introduced: shouts, shrieks, and even growls echoing around in some horrific and disorientating schizophrenia. Finally, the ‘main’ priest enters, spitting out his own frantic and villainous sermon regarding the tyranny and torment of time, the harbinger. The mix of this variety of vocal deliveries with the music creates an almost psychedelic cinematic experience. The hymnbook is dense and unnerving, but uniquely theatrical. For those that crave a futuristic or progressive spin on dark extreme metal, Spire has something for you.
Recommended tracks: Hymn I – Tyrant, Hymn III – Harbinger, Hymn V – Khronos
Recommended for fans of: Blut Aus Nord, A Forest of Stars, Enslaved, Gojira
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Sentient Ruin Laboratories – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook
Spire is:
– Unknown
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