Navigating You Through the Progressive Underground

Style: Progressive death(core?) (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Krosis
Review by: Zach
Country: US-IL
Release date: 9 September, 2022

We were gathered ‘round the Subway water cooler the other day talking about our favorite non-metal media. As expected of metalheads, discussion of horror is always just a few words away, and surprise, most of us included horror movies on our favorite films list. With that discussion, our glorious leader Sebastian brought up an excellent point. You can tell a lot about someone from their taste in art, spoken like Grand Admiral Thrawn himself. And one of those films I listed on my favorites was the movie Hereditary. A movie that scared me, a lifelong horror fan, so badly that I refuse to watch it again. But what kind of person am I to subject myself to such a horrific film?

Probably the same person who thinks Warforged’s I:Voice is one of the most important death metal albums of the 2010s. It’s without a doubt the scariest album in my library, even beating out any Ulcerate or Ad Nauseam horror show. It is the only metal album to make me feel legitimately anxious and scared upon first listen, helped by the fantastic music video they made for the whole album. Whether that has to do with the phlegm demon vocals, the murky production atypical of The Artisan Era bands, or the fact that there are multiple musical jumpscares which come after melodic sections that lure you into a false sense of security is all up for consideration. Probably all three. This album is the crown jewel of terrifying, surprisingly beautiful, and everything in between. With 2022 turning out to be the year of killer follow ups, and coming from a band that made an album I consider a solid 9.5-10, surely nothing can go wrong here, right?

Right?

I’ve never seen a bigger step down since Fallujah’s Undying Light.

With every fiber of my being, it kills me to say that. I would be a dishonest man if I said this album was anything above mediocre. Gone is the atmosphere of Essence of the Land and I:Voice with the absence of vocalist and keyboardist Adrian Perez, replaced with hardly dissonant chugs and some…odd lyrics. But, throughout the release of the singles, I remained hopeful. After all, I should hear how the songs fit together in the context of the album. That’s what sold me on I:Voice, after all. 

I wish someone would’ve recorded my face when opener ‘No Land Man’ transitioned from a car seatbelt alarm into the next song. It’s probably the strangest creative choice I’ve heard in a while, and call it a nitpick as much as you want, but it really sets the tone for the rest of the album. These songs don’t fit together at all. ‘Self-Destruct Seminar’ into ‘Bliss Joined to The Bane’ is the closest we get to an actual transition on the album, though they’re my least favorite songs on The Grove

‘Bliss Joined’ was the very first single, and speaking of tone setters, this one did a great job. Between the overly simplistic guitar riffs and the lyrics, it set alarm bells ringing in my head from the moment it came out. “I’m a fat fucking mess and I’m dirty as shit/That’ll be old news when I get a drink” wouldn’t sound good even coming out of Mikael Akerfeldt’s mouth. It’s even more jarring coming out of the band that wrote straight up poetry on their last releases; as if Edgar Allan Poe gave up writing horror and decided it was time to write some trashy romance.

Throughout the entire album, I was waiting for The Grove | Sundial to smack me in the face with some incredible riff, but not even the guitars are safe here. Any semblance of a riff has been turned into endless chug after chug. Chugs are fantastic–genuinely one of the best sounds a guitar can make–but if nearly every single riff is a chug, something’s wrong. ‘Sheridan Road’ interrupts this pattern for a minute with some clean singing tainted in a rhythm that resembles  Seal’s ‘Kiss From A Rose’  far too much, before going right back into the chugs. The worst part is, the latter half of this song is kind of good. If that energy kept through the entire album, I would be singing its praises right now.

I’ve done a lot of ragging on this album, I know. The truth is that The Grove isn’t a bad album. It’s a sometimes okay album in those fleeting moments, but there’s just so much mediocrity below all that. The production sounds fantastic, and Jason Nitts’ drumming is amazing as usual, but other than that, there’s nothing incredible here. Maybe, in a few months, something’s gonna click and I’ll give this a higher score. But the more I listen to this, the less likely I see that happening.


Recommended tracks: Sheridan Road
You may also like: Release the Blackness, The Voynich Code, Pathogenic
Final verdict: 5.5/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: The Artisan Era – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

Warforged is:
– Jason Nitts (drums)
– Alex Damske (bass, clean vocals)
– Jace Kiburz (guitars)
– Max Damske (guitars)
– Tim O’Brein (vocals)



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