COWARDICE – ATAVIST

(Andy Synn recommends making time to immerse yourself in the bleak beauty of Atavist, out now)

Damn, there were a lot of good albums released last week, huh? And I mean a lot.

Just off the top of my head (and not including Oubliette, who I’ve already written about) there’s Umbra Vitae, Terminal Function, Houle, Swelling Repulsion, Lascar, Brazen Tongue, Thanatotherion, Fractal Generator… the list goes on… only some of whom I’m likely to get to writing about before the month is over.

But the reason I picked Cowardice, out of all the aforementioned possibilities (and all the unmentioned ones), is because – in defiance of their chosen moniker – they’re clearly not afraid to take risks.

Why else would they choose to make their new album (their second overall, and their first full-length release in eight years) an absolutely massive double-disc affair, clocking in at just under eighty five minutes of sorrowful, yet spellbinding, Sludge/Doom?

Right off the bat I should say that, having listened to Atavist a number of times since its release, one of the album’s biggest strengths is that it never feels as long as you might expect.

Sure, there are a few moments here and there which don’t quite work for me – the female cleans towards the end of “Cloisters” in particular just feel oddly divorced from the rest of the track, and temporarily take me out of the experience every time I heard them – but the album’s actual length has never once been an issue (not so far, at least) due to the fantastic (and organic) sense of flow which propels and guides the way these eleven tracks are structured and arranged.

As a result, I’ve found that the best way to experience Atavist is all in one go, allowing the two subtly distinct halves of the record (entitled “Suzerain” and “Sentinel”) to form a complete whole as they wash over you in successive waves of heartbreak and hopelessness.

Of course, this means that you’ll need to put aside a considerable block of time in for this – my advice is to give yourself a good hour and a half, at least, just so you have a bit of time to process things afterwards – but, believe me, the music is more than worth it.

Speaking of the music… with all the contextual groundwork now out of the way, it’s probably time I said at least a few things more specific about the sound and the fury – and what it signifies – which makes up Atavist.

To give you some idea of what Cowardice sound like these days, Atavist exists somewhere on the spectrum between the sombre strains of Bell Witch and the tormented tones of Body Void, with the first half of the album (“Suzerain”) erring more towards the bleakly melodic style of the former, while part two (“Sentinel”) shifts the focus towards a darker, dirgier approach.

Perhaps inevitably, it’s not quite that cut and dry – the gut-churning grind of “Unforgeable Key”, for example, is just as nasty and gnarly as anything found on “Sentinel”, while the desolate disharmonies of “The Diminutive Principle” channel a similarly angst-ridden aura as much of “Suzerain” – but this distinction between the two halves, subtle as it may be, plays a big role in giving the whole album its sense of direction and progression.

And while I’ll always recommend listening to the totality of Atavist so as to get the most out of it – especially if you’re a fan of the likes of Cavernlight and/or Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean, both of whom also serve as useful touchstones for any prospective listener – I’d also draw your attention to the gorgeously gloomy slow-burn of opener “To the Hilt of Humanity”, the haunting melodies and heaving grooves of the sludge-soaked “Clairvoyance Anxiety”, and the morbid majesty of “Hall of Ages”, as some of the record’s major highlights.

Indeed, it’s this last track which will both test your resolve and prove, once and for all, that Atavist is more than worth every second you’ve invested into listening to it so far, with every crushing, cathartic chord and ringing, harmonic note… every tortured, suffering snarl and trembling, melancholy melody… coming together over the course of seventeen absolutely massive minutes to demonstrate that, despite its imposing size and intense sound, Cowardice‘s new album is nothing to be afraid of.