Reviews list for Coffinworm - IV.I.VIII (2014)

I always find sludge to be quite a warm genre. Sure, it can be plenty abrasive, but generally the distorted doom metal element adds a certain warmth to the sound. Here, however, Coffinworm have imbued their sludge with an iciness forged from black metal which removes any comforting fuzziness from the album and replaces it with a cold, implacable visage that suggests that the band couldn't care less whether you like it or not. But the joke's on them because it seems everyone, myself included, does love it - haha!

Sludge metal strikes me as a genre that it is quite easy to get wrong and there are plenty of releases that leave me cold, but with IV.I.VIII Coffinworm have turned in an album that manages to get the sludge part right, whilst producing something a bit different-sounding to the plethora of sludge acts who seem to have emerged from every piece of available wordwork over the last decade or so. There is a dichotomy at the heart of IV.I.VIII, which is that it feels like it is a really abrasive and pugnacious album, but before you know it, it has sucked you in with an unexpected melodic riff before hammering you with the battering ram it has had hidden from view. Kind of the epitome of the steel fist in the velvet glove.

This is some seriously heavy-sounding shit and the blackened edge to the vocals and some of the guitarwork sound like a ripsaw trying to saw the top of your head off while the riffs are oppressive and overbearing, looming over the listener like an impending tidal wave. In addition to the black metal influence there also seems to be a detectable death metal component to some of the riffs that makes them really tight-sounding (and all the more oppressive for it). Some bands seem, to me anyway, to strive for extremity by making themselves virtually unlistenable, so drenched in dissonance and angularity are they in a search for the holy grail of inaccesibility that they forget about writing any sort of "songs". Luckily Coffinworm have been able to attain extremity without completely eschewing what makes music so cool in the first place - the songs. The tracks here are well-written and have both a direction of travel and a resolution, whilst still sounding like world-killers.

Coffinworm truly aren't for the faint-hearted Fallen member, but if you enjoy life on the outer limits of the clan's remit, then that is definitely where you will find IV.I.VIII. like some Arthur C. Clarke monolith waiting to point unwary metalheads towards the next evolutionary level of metal extremity.

The oppressive and alienating sound of Coffinworm's final full length release first landed on my radar back in the year of its inception.  Back then I was flirting with sludge metal on and off and as such IV.I.VIII was one of my gateway records into the sub-genre.  Returning to it now probably some 5 years since my last full play through there is a sense of nostalgia that needs to be supressed somewhat in order to give the album a fair review based on its merits alone.  Thankfully the positives are obvious from the off and no airy vibes from a skip down memory lane are required on my part.

The pestilential qualities of this album are still ridiculously infectious some nine years after I first heard them.  I read an article this past week on some mummies in some Mexican museum that have done the rounds of the planet on exhibition at various other museums and scientists have just noticed spores growing on the mummified bodies (many of whom are still wearing the clothes they died in) that they believe harmful to humans despite the bodies being buried and exhumed into glass cases over several years.  This record is a little bit like those "screaming mummies".  Agonisingly vibrant in its presentation, this album has the capacity to make very horrible things grow on the listener - and you should jolly well fucking let it in my opinion. 

It is a tragedy that Coffinworm called it quits some two years after this release as based on this performance they had a lot to offer as a collective.  This is sickening sludge metal, like some wonderful tasting food that you know is out of date and instantly makes you projectile vomit as soon as it hits your stomach but you still go back for more because it tastes so delicious.  IV.I.VIII will have you convulsing and contorting as its violence and cataclysmic dankness strikes you in your very central nervous system.  Swarming tracks like Black Tears that cleverly deploys instrumentation that sounds like a car alarm in the final third of the track to add to its terrifying appeal are real album highlights and the slamming and bludgeoning opening of Lust vs Vengeance will stay with you for a long time after the record comes to a stop.

Unlike Daniel, I do not find this album to be as much of an all out assault - I mean it fucking clobbers you repeatedly yeah, but I do also pick up on the lighter moments were the pace and intensity gets paired back enough to let me enjoy some of the rhythms in use, it is these moments that really make me feel that Coffinworm are crawling all over my shit in all honesty.  As well as the traditional instruments we would all expect here of guitars, drums etc there are also pianos, keyboards and percussion thrown into the mix which all add to the atmospheric horror that the band create here.

Clear winner in the album highlight stakes is Of Eating Disorders and Restraining Orders, the drop that starts the track proper resonating against my skeleton, heralding the start of one of the most sprawling and corrosive tracks on the whole album.  In all honesty though, this album is so close to full marks.  Agonisingly close in fact.  The only blip I can identify is that some elements feel a bit over-repeated, like the full juice from some ideas is properly getting squeezed out instead of accepting that it has already been used to good effect already.  Seriously though, I was nervous about presenting my first feature release in The Fallen, especially given the length of time that had passed since I last gave this album a full spin.  I am so happy with my choice though and should have more confidence in my instincts because even with nostalgia put aside this is a fucking great record.

With the exception of one or two prominent acts, I’d only just begun my initial approaches to the sludge metal genre when I decided to check out the 2010 “When All Became None” debut album from Indianapolis five-piece Coffinworm at the time of release so I can’t say that I’m too surprised by my three star rating although, after the experiences of the last couple of days, I hold grave fears for the relevance & accuracy of that assessment. You see, this month’s The Fallen clan feature release has made a sizeable dent in the front of my skull & one that I’m not likely to forget in a hurry.

I often find that the releases that are most closely tailored to my musical taste are downrated by others & I think that’s par for the course when you have such dark preferences & such an aversion to melody or any form of light at the end of the tunnel. “IV.I.VIII” is a prime example of a release that hits squarely on my musical sweet spot though in that it’s violently aggressive, deeply nihilistic & suffocatingly oppressive. Coffinworm have quite simply left any hint of accessibility at the door & have pummeled me with a hardcore fury that I’ve rarely experienced before. Opener “Sympathectomy” utilizes full-on grindcore to lay waste to any misconceptions I may have had about the depth of depravity I was about to witness before the next couple of tracks add a blackened edge to drag me further & further down into the abyss. Yes, you’ll often see records like this one tagged as blackened sludge/doom but the fact of the matter is that the black metal influence is only aesthetic & there is no straight-up doom metal on offer. This is just about the epitome of what sludge metal should aspire to be in my opinion & my best description is the uncompromising sludge/doom of bands like Thou & Cough combined with the in-your-face extremity of Dragged Into Sunlight. I mean if Mastodon & Melvins are your favourite sludge bands & you’re looking for something similar then I’m afraid this ain’t it buddy.

The two-pronged vocal delivery of front man Dave Berkowitz is unrivalled in its visceral spite. One minute he sounds like a rabid grindcore grunter & the next he’s a psychotic hardcore madman of the highest order. The instrumentation is super tight, crushingly heavy & beautifully produced too with the thick guitar tone leaving the listener pulverized under the weight of doom-laden hardcore power chords. You even get some blast-beats here & there but they’re performed in a loose & violent way that really suits Coffinworm’s sound. Ultimately this band sounds for all money like they’ve absolutely nailed their sound & are now hellbent on stuffing it down your throat with great force.

There’s a wonderful consistency to the tracklisting with all of the six tracks being highly impressive. There are a couple of clear highlights however & it’s these that see what could have been a very solid & impressive release being elevated to heights that few sludge metal acts manage to reach. The first is the superbly blackened “Instant Death Syndrome” with its use of open-string riffs that could have been borrowed from mid-90’s Satyricon & the second is the magnificent eight-minute epic that is “Of Eating Disorders & Restraining Orders” which may just be the pinnacle of Coffinworm’s sound. At the end of the day though, your more seasoned sludge fan is very unlikely to find much to complain about here, even though a few of the tracks include a weaker section here or there that sees my hopes of them reaching classic status squandered to an extent.

“IV.I.VIII” is a marvellous choice for a Metal Academy feature release as it’s so clearly underrated but is highly likely to appeal to some of our more experienced & battle-hardened regulars. It’s definitely made me take a good hard look at my musical development too as I simply can’t condone my having rated this band so poorly back in 2010 when their debut is generally regarded as being superior to this sophomore record. It’s left me feeling quite proud of how far I’ve managed to develop my metal taste actually as I would never have been able to stomach a hardcore-driven beast of an album like this one fifteen years ago. Now though, this is very much my bag, my cup of tea & my jam all wrapped up into a ball of anger & punishment.