February 2021 Feature Release – The Fallen Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month’s feature release for The Fallen is the brand new album from US drone metal duo The Body entitled “I’ve Seen All I Need To See”. These guys have been very prolific over the last decade or so through not only their own work but also through regular collaborations with other artists. The early feedback on this release has been very positive so it’ll be interesting to see what it has to offer.

https://metal.academy/releases/25909

What we have here is a particularly abrasive & unique brand of drone metal that heavily utilizes industrial electronics to further distort the already crushingly heavy down-tuned guitar drones & create an atmosphere of sheer, unadulterated depravity. It's certainly not the sort of record that you can expect to fully grasp upon first listen as your ears will need time to adjust to the senseless beating they're being submitted to. There are a couple of vocal approaches utilized with the bulk of the run time being dominated by a repetitive high-pitched shriek that I find quite annoying but whenever the more evil black metal style screams come in I find myself in a place of pure darkness & dread so I can only wish that they'd opted for a different balance.

Unlike saxy, I have very little doubt that this is a metal release. No matter how much twisting & distorting the producer has done post recording, the guitars are what dominates this record & the best material (like "Tied Up & Locked In" or the unbelievable album highlight "The City Is Shelled") rely almost entirely upon the power of amplifier reverberation for their appeal. As a guitar nut, I can't really get enough droning doom riffage & any attempt to make it sound darker & heavier is certainly welcome, particularly when it contributes to a dire atmosphere like this one. Unfortunately those shrieking vocals do hold this album back a bit & I think it had the potential to play a more significant part in my 2021. Regardless, fans of Sunn O))) should get a kick out of this.

4/5

P.S. I think Ben would find this album to be very tough going indeed. Would love to hear his thoughts on it.

I've seen enough, heard enough, and described enough. Here's my review link: https://metal.academy/reviews/20056/25909

2/5

I've looked back to the beginning of last year at The Fallen feature releases and it's interesting to see that of the fourteen featured albums there have been six that are classed drone/post-metal, five are gothic metal or gothic doom, two stoner doom (one of which has a tendency towards drone) and one progressive sludge. Is this merely down to personal choice or is it a perception that funeral doom, so-called traditional doom, epic doom and non-gothic death doom are just not liable to produce any worthwhile debate or comment? 

In response to your enquiry Sonny, my original intention was to spread our feature releases around amongst every subgenre included in the clans but I decided that this approach wasn't working after putting out several features that received very little engagement (goregrind & Celtic metal for example). It also made no sense to be putting out as many niche subgenre releases as the more classic ones (e.g. gorenoise vs death metal). In regards to The Fallen, I got through all of the subgenres with the exception of funeral doom metal which was next on the list when I decided to rethink my approach. It's worth noting though that I didn't differentiate gothic death doom from your regular death/doom or epic doom from your garden variety of doom though. I actually never thought there was much reason to differentiate those until you recently raised the topic & it explained why I didn't get the expected engagement from you on one or two of the past features.

The next approach I tried was purely to encourage the discovery of new music. I was picking highly-regarded releases that hadn't been rated by any of our regular contributors (with the possible exception of Ben & I) & this saw engagement picking up with people investigating bands & releases outside of their usual comfort zones. I wasn't really paying all that much attention to which subgenre these releases were from though as long as the members were discovering new high quality music. I ended up abandoning this methodology once I saw that people like yourself & Xephyr who are so comprehensive in your ratings for particular subgenres were causing me to skip those altogether though.

Over the last couple of months I've changed it up again & are focusing on a) highly regarded & interesting current releases & b) a mixture of old classics & unheralded gems. I haven't been focusing on the subgenres of these releases all that much or whether they've been rated before or not. It's been more about presenting quality options for everyone to enjoy & I often choose releases that I haven't personally rated as I'm committed to rating all nine of the features each month. My own musical preferences aren't taken into account at all though (as seen by the recent power metal features).

As you can see, it's a very fluid process of improvement. I'm obviously open to everyone's feedback (as seen in the changes we've been regularly implementing in that regard) so if you'd like me to focus on particular areas then feel free to let me know (like you appear to have here).