Style: Sludge Metal, Progressive Metal, Post-Metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: early Mastodon, Gojira, early Cult of Luna, Neurosis
Review by: Sam
Country: US-CO
Release date: 26 May, 2023
Usually, I like melodic things with strongly emotive vocal melodies; think Evergrey, think Anathema, think Pain of Salvation, and so on. But sometimes, I just want to be punched in the face. No frills, just gnarling riffs and demonic vocals that make me feel real “unga bunga” and awaken the urge to run through a brick wall. Now, this is still a prog blog, so we’ll never get into the extremities of this like war metal where every song is 2 minutes of highly condensed aggression and subhuman guttural noises, but within the realms of prog, Vexing have given me an admiral level of blunt trauma. Death metal may be the most intense subgenre, but sludge metal comes damn close with its insanely thick guitar tones.
Opener “The Mold” shows you Vexing means business. It’s fast, it’s relentless, and it’s groovy as fuck. Thick sludgy riffs and beefy harsh vocals ride over alternating thrash grooves and blast beats. The song gets heavier and heavier as it nears its conclusion and finishes with a delicious doomy breakdown. It also shows their progressive side a little bit with Mastodon-esque stoner flourishes on the opening riff and shifting rhythms at its climax. After this, the band album gets more complex. “Vanquishing Light” is a longer track on which post-rock influences start seeping through the cracks as atmospheric tremolos fill up the soundscape and mini crescendo structures emerge. The first three to four minutes are great as it linearly ramps up the intensity of the gnarly sludge riffs that the band excels in, and it peaks with blackgaze-y tremolos, but then after the drop-off they pretty much repeat the same structure with little variation, feeling redundant. “The Invisible Hand” is a more successful post-metal song with a tighter composition, though the melodic solo halfway through – while pretty – feels out of place, and I wish they either expanded on it more in the climax or dropped it.
On “Shallow Breath”, things take a turn for the doomy. Sluggish riffs grind your face on concrete before mauling you with bursts of tremolos and Thall-ish odd-time riffs. But it’s all worth it for it finishes with a comfy post-rock build before again stamping on your face. The second half is more of a mixed bag. It starts with an atmospheric interlude which doesn’t do much of anything besides giving your ears some rest from the sonic assault, but then “Blunderbuss” right after kicks ass as it finally integrates melodic ideas from post-rock into their sludge assault in a natural way, whereas before it could be either-or (see: “Vanquishing Light”, “Shallow Breath”). However, that failure to blend resurfaces on the epic “Small Black Flame”. It’s split into three disjointed parts: first it mauls you with sludge metal for a couple of minutes, then it meanders through post-rock atmospheres, and finally it comes back with the sludge to climax, which they do very well, but it doesn’t fix the song’s lack of cohesiveness. Closer “Red Skies” is mostly back to the goodness with riffs that sound just a tad fresher than the last couple of songs (which were starting to become a bit repetitive), delicious bass work, and some very impressive drumming, but the sudden fade-out is disappointing and gives a poor aftertaste.
I’m mixed on Grand Reproach. Every song (besides “Howling” maybe) has something going for it, but often the band makes weird compositional choices that mess with their coherence, making it difficult to keep songs in mind. I find myself by far preferring the more straightforward tracks like the opener and “Blunderbuss” over their more ambitious songs, which is a shame because Vexing have some excellent ideas amid the jumble. Their riff-game and technical performance is excellent, but the coherency quickly starts to falter as they implement more out-there ideas. Should they shore up their issues, we might get a very good album next time.
Recommended tracks: The Mold, Blunderbuss, Red Skies
You may also like: Lo!, LLNN, HALP, Ergo I Exist
Final verdict: 5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Vexing is:
– Clayton Whitelaw (bass, vocals)
– Garrett Jones (guitar, vocals)
– Jeff Malpezzi (drums)
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