Heirs
Fowl
Denovali Records 2010
The
debut album from Australia's post-doomers Heirs is a thing of brooding
grace. Introspective accents accompany a clockwork pulsing of
bass guitar on album opener Dust. It's an unimposing, yet
captivating piece of contemplative music. That is until the 3:52
mark when a lumbering wall of tremulous guitar rises steeply from the
Assembly line-like precision of the bassline. Sorrowful notes
float across the roapiest bass guitar I have ever heard on the title
track. Industrial beats and samples create a deserted factory
soundscape. Raw, scraping guitars add ominous textures to the
track building towards a cacophony of piercing sounds creating a sense
of claustraphobia. Burrow however drops things back to clean
solitary guitar and an urgent beat. Haunting female voices hover
like shadowy ghosts until it all explodes into an imposing shard of
wavering guitar and pounding drums. A beat, like a giant machine,
punctuates the flowing melody of Tyrant. The song then leaps into
huge massive industrial riffs that bring to mind Godflesh's
Streetcleaner album. Then the cycle repeats until the song's
conclusion. My favorite song is the dreamlike Mother. It
has a cool, jazzy beat and a hard bassline that accompany nostalgic
guitars that hypnotize with their circular patterns. The song's
density escalates with shards of dissonance rising and then suddenly
collapsing back in on themselves. Fowl is an album that works
around an industrial core comprised of precise beats and walls of
discordant sound. These are punctuated by calm and melancholic
guitar compositions that leave the listener in a state of sorrowful
contemplation. Despite its mechanical touches, this album appeals
on an emotional level.