BEST OF BRITISH: TIDES OF SULFUR / TORPOR / TRIVAX

(Andy Synn presents another collection of British artists/albums he thinks you should check out)

Good afternoon kids (and kids of all ages).

Are you ready to learn?

Well, today’s edition of the “Best of British” is brought to you by the letter “T” and the number “3”.

So shut up and start paying attention. There will be a test.

TIDES OF SULFUR – APATHY CHASM

There’s lots of different ways to be “heavy”. Engaging with dark subject matter. Plumbing the depths of human emotion. Immersing yourself in oppressive atmospherics.

But sometimes… sometimes it’s ok to just be fucking heavy in the most direct and damage-intensive way possible, dropping massive riffs and crushing grooves and barrages of blistering blastbeats without an ounce of remorse or restraint.

Which is pretty much what Tides of Sulfur have done on Apathy Chasm, delivering eight tracks of blackened, sludge-soaked Death-Grind all designed to rip your face off and reduce your bones to dust.

That being said, there are still occasional moments of nuance amidst all the fire and fury – opener “Anxiety Veteran”, for example, conceals a brooding undercurrent of doom ‘n’ gloom beneath its raging riffs and rapid-fire drums, while colossal closer “Nazinsky” finds the band, unexpectedly, erring towards the darker and moodier side of the Post-Metal spectrum – but these never detract from the album’s almost unyielding heaviness (if anything they only serve to enhance it).

As a matter of fact, the subtle (if that’s the right word to use here) contrast between the band’s most gruesomely grindy moments (with the likes of “Ruined” and “Blame Thrower” – especially the latter – capable of putting the likes of Full of Hell and Of Feather and Bone to shame) and their doomiest, sludgiest songs (“Disgruntled”, “Summer of Snakes”) is a big part of what makes Apathy Chasm such a good album, as it means you’re never quite sure what direction the next brutal blow is coming from.

TORPOR – ABSCISSION

Torpor have always been a band whose sizable sound seems like it would take more than just three members to produce, but on Abscission they’ve cranked things up to such apocalyptic levels that it’s practically inconceivable that this album is the product of just a trio.

The oppressive weight of “Interior Gestures”, for example, is a sight for sore-ears (to mangle a well-known phrase), and comes crashing out of the speakers with all the elemental force of a slow-motion tidal wave.

But it’s not all blunt-force trauma and crushing claustrophobia (though there’s certainly a lot of that on display, that’s for sure) – there’s also a significant amount of depth to the band’s music, especially when they pull back from the brink and let the more atmospheric side of their sound breathe during the song’s haunting second half.

To say that “Interior Gestures” takes you on a “journey” might be a tad cliched, but it’s true all the same, and the same is pretty true about the rest of the album, from the even darker, doomier (and, somehow, even heavier) strains of “As Shadow Follows Body”, through the cataclysmic assault on the senses that is “Accidie” (where the band crank out every erg of energy possible from their unfeasibly massive guitar tone) and the unsettling “Carbon”, all the way to the final fading note(s) of “Island of Abandonment” (whose early restraint makes the subsequent explosion – and unexpectedly moody, clean-sung climax – somehow even more impactful).

Not only that, but at times the band’s back-breakingly heavy delivery punches all the way through the other side of the Post-Metal spectrum to meet the doomy “Post-Death” of bands like Nott and Humanity’s Last Breath coming the other way, with the jagged, lurching riffs of “Accidie” in particular achieving a level of heaviness that most “Post-” bands – of all shapes and sizes – could only dream of.

And while the sheer sonic density of the group’s sound might initially make Abscission difficult to dig into, once you’ve finally cracked it open you’ll find a wealth of subtle twists and atmosphere-enhancing embellishments hidden just beneath the album’s armour-plated surface. Trust me, it’s well worth the effort.

TRIVAX – ELOAH BURNS OUT

The UK Black Metal scene has always been a particularly fertile one, that’s for sure.

The downside, of course, is that this sometimes makes it difficult to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff and really get a sense of who’s making waves and who’s just going through the motions.

Fortunately for them – and for us – one could never accuse Trivax of just phoning it in or following the formula – especially after their semi-rebirth a few years back, which saw them adopting a more intense and artistically ambitious approach which, you’ll be glad to hear, continues to hold true on Eloah Burns Out.

The band’s flirtations with Eastern-inspired melodies and instruments on tracks like “Azrael” and “در آخر دنیا” (which I’ll say more about later), for example, continue to reflect and pay tribute to their Iranian roots, and add a distinctive flavour to their music on top of their increasingly dark and deathly take on Black Metal, while their increasingly ambitious and progressive approach to structure (as epitomised by dynamic mid-album epic “The Serpent’s Gaze” and previously mentioned closer “در آخر دنیا”) sees them focussing more and more on the storytelling aspect of their songwriting.

Those looking for a dedicated dose of blastbeats and blasphemy will also be well-served however, as the trio definitely haven’t lost their love of a big, beefy riff (“Alpha Predator” is pretty much nothing but hefty, hook-laden guitars) nor their willingness to crank up the speed when it suits them (with “Against All Opposition” successfully marrying bursts of vicious velocity with bouts of gargantuan groove).

But it’s definitely to their credit that Trivax seem more and more interested in shaking things up a little more with each new release, with “در آخر دنیا” being the peak of the band’s ambitions this time around, stretching their sound to fill out just under twelve moody minutes of slow-burning black magic(k) in a way which suggests that the best is still to come.