Style: Avant-garde Metal, Experimental Rock, Progressive Metal, Post-metal (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Oranssi Pazuzu, black midi, King Crimson
Review by: Dave
Country: Massachusetts, United States
Release date: 30 August 2013
As alluded to in my Alora Crucible review, I have a complicated relationship with Kayo Dot’s music. I have great respect for Toby Driver and his visionary avant-garde compositions, but Kayo Dot makes many musical choices that are fundamentally opposed to my taste, utilizing tools that conjure an inexplicable discomfort, with releases like Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike’s eldritch chord choices and surreal dissonance making me dissociate from abject unease on first listen. Today, however, I would like to extend an olive branch to Toby Driver and Kayo Dot’s fans by exploring the appeal of one of his longest, most acclaimed, and most inscrutable pieces: Hubardo. This is the album I am most familiar with, being recommended “And He Built Him a Boat” in 2014 and subsequently slamming my head into a wall trying to understand Hubardo as a whole, failing spectacularly with each listen. But the days of slamming my head against a wall are over: today, we’re going to dissect this ninety-eight-minute piece and garner an understanding of what makes it so beloved by its fans. Let’s grow together, and discover once and for all how Hubardo became a landmark in avant-garde metal.
So what does such a supposedly weird and inscrutable album sound like? Across its mammoth runtime, one can expect to hear avant-garde metal of all kinds: soundscapes carved out of drums and bass, blisteringly intense walls of sound at the hands of shrieking guitars, saxophones, and drums, and smooth, gentle orchestration that delicately interplays synthesizers and strings, among other styles. What brings all of these disparate elements together, however, is the underlying story, a testament to the mutual love between the outcast and the bizarre. Hubardo begins on a stormy evening in a secluded forest village where a mysterious stone called the Eye of Leviathan falls from the sky. Upon the Eye’s discovery, the townspeople are repulsed and disgusted by it, save for a young, lonely poet, who is enchanted by the Eye and is compelled to steal it away, becoming manically obsessed with its properties. Fixated on the idea that there is a seed inside the stone, he plants and cultivates it, waking up the next day to an enormous roaring river in its stead. He then builds a boat to follow the river to its end, leading him into the sky and up to a gate which he cannot pass. The poet wastes away in front of the gate, and another Eye falls to Earth once more to repeat the cycle.
From its beginning moments, Hubardo establishes its themes of unease and the severe psychological effects of incomprehensible events. Opener “The Black Stone” betrays discomfort as guttural harsh vocals are dotted by sparse rushing drum beats, frantic trembling bass, and myriad eerie squeals; beautiful strings emerge briefly through these uncomfortable elements. The deconstructed atmospherics wax and wane for six minutes before coalescing into something with more standard musical structure, upon which a dour and tense atmosphere mounts as the track morphs into a climactic mix of post-rock and black metal. Things seldom get more optimistic from there, as the story writhes and contorts like the storm that bore the Eye of Leviathan around ideas of terrifying spectacle and enchantment. The beginning half of “Crown-In-the-Muck” is serene and tranquil but the latter half holds a mirror to the townspeoples’ hatred of this terrifying stone; following track “Thief” lives exclusively in psychedelic paranoia as reality warps around pedal guitars and chaotic saxophones, accented by maddened screams and clean vocals expressing visions of unknowable beauty; and “Vision Adjustment to Another Wavelength” burns your senses with its sudden and abstract terror as the protagonist becomes more and more drawn to his stolen jewel before collapsing into what can only be described as the smooth jazz played in the waiting room of Hell.
However, not all of Hubardo is a pummeling assault of the senses at the hands of mind-warping objects. Halfway through the album, two glorious palate cleansers are introduced: “The First Matter (Saturn in the Guise of Sadness)” is a chilled-out contemplation in the style of Pink Floyd, gentle drums leading warbly synthesizers across a still pond reflecting gentle moonlight before picking up a touch of speed in the final stretches; follow-up “The Second Operation (Lunar Water)” is likely the most gorgeous track of the album, our attention redirected to blooming flowers and silvery nighttime tranquility as delicate piano and strings dance around each other gingerly. Don’t be misled, though, there is still an eerie undertone to these pieces, primarily in Driver’s vocal delivery and the use of strange chord choices in backing vocals, but the two tracks deliver in tandem a necessary and overall pleasant respite from the intensity bubbling underneath before having our skulls smashed in by “Floodgate,” one of Hubardo’s most panicked and severe moments.
Other tracks escape Driver’s characteristic eldritch soundscapes and deliver grand and cinematic moments, such as the towering post-metal piece “And He Built Him a Boat,” which showcases some of Driver’s most triumphant vocal lines overtop of hypnotic drum patterns and spacious guitarwork bookended by walls of sound. Heavenly closer “The Wait of the World” is a satisfying end to this reality-shattering journey, beginning with smooth saxophone exploration that gets bent and twisted by buzzing guitars and frantic percussion before settling into soft reverberating vocals pitted against tense drumwork, building and flagging in intensity until Hubardo’s sudden crumbling end. These grander moments juxtaposed with raw intensity and placid contemplations betray the narrative depth on display and emulate what are very real reactions to such a bizarre and otherworldly turn of events, starting with the dour storm from which the Eye of Leviathan came to the manic desire and abject panic caused by the Eye to the catharsis and peace brought upon by the poet’s contented resolution, therein lying the genius of Hubardo: its story manages to balance the real and the surreal in a way that is logical and understandable.
I don’t know if I’ll ever truly and unconditionally love Hubardo, but it is an album that I have marveled at for a decade now, equally disgusted by and curious about its reality-warping sheen, desperate to understand it at its core. That alone should signal Hubardo’s merit as an artistic piece, as it makes me eager to see the artist’s point of view and forces me to examine my values as a music listener. Regardless of my personal relationship with Kayo Dot’s music, Hubardo is a masterwork in suspenseful quasi-horror storytelling, with narratively consonant musical movements delivered in a spectacularly paced package. Despite its goal to unsettle and intrigue, it never wholly overwhelms the listener, and even features many moments that are undeniably glorious and triumphant, along with others that are a soothing balm among the madness. If you’ve got a spare two hours to just get weird with an album, then pick up Hubardo and enjoy one of Toby Driver’s most bizarre, intense, and ultimately human pieces.
Recommended Tracks: And He Built Him a Boat, Zlida Caosgi, The Second Operation (Lunar Water)
You may also like: maudlin of the Well, Ved Buens Ende….., Virus
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | RateYourMusic page | Metal-Archives page
Label: Prophecy Productions – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook
Kayo Dot is:
– Toby Driver (vocals, bass, keyboards)
– Keith Abrams (drums)
– Ron Varod (guitars)
– Daniel Means (saxophone, clarinet)
– Terran Olson (woodwinds, keyboards)
– Tim Byrnes (brass)
– Mia Matsumiya (violin)
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