High on Fire - Snakes for the Divine (2010)Release ID: 5155
After listening to the perfect Bat Salad EP by High on Fire, followed by a revisiting of one of Grand Magus' albums, I felt up to exploring some more of this intriguing blend of stoner metal with more upbeat classic metal genres. The mind-blowing glory of this mix of sounds strikes again with Snakes for the Divine, a stoner/sludge/thrash metal album featuring a dark twist in the Adam and Eve myth!
This was long before High on Fire won a Grammy Award for the title track of their 2018 album Electric Messiah. They've already had a breakthrough before then by getting signed into E1 for this album after the previous 3 were released by Relapse Records. Now how can Snakes for the Divine be such a divine album for me? Answers to come...
The 8-minute opening title epic greatly displays the talent of these speedy stoner metal titans, including the Lemmy-esque voice of Matt Pike (also the guitarist for Sleep). The stoner/sludge/thrash sound is greatly exemplified in this perfect highlight. Lots of fantastic soloing here! "Frost Hammer" is another devastating thrash highlight. It also has an atmospheric not too far from the earlier sludge material of Mastodon, y'know, the band whom the members first met each other in one of High on Fire's first ever shows. "B****rd Samurai" slows things down with some psychedelic bass by Jeff Matz that would almost have Black Sabbath's "Planet Caravan" pop up in your mind, if not for the heavy stoner metal instrumentation that rules the track.
"Ghost Neck" is yet another song that dominates with a more thrashy sound. An interlude, "The Path" is thrown into the middle of the album. It doesn't really stand out in the album, but being an short instrumental, it doesn't affect the perfect score. It segues to the track "Fire, Flood & Plague", where the verses show Matt Pike expanding his vocal range higher as they gradually get more brutal. The drumming gets harder and more technical in this furious piece of prog-ish thrash. The relentlessness refuses to lower down, and it has stirred up another highlight.
"How Dark We Pray" is another different track, with stoner riffing/soloing as part of the diverse guitarwork. "Holy Flames of the Fire Spitter" spits out some more fast sludge fire in yet another memorable song. The Best Buy edition has 3 bonus tracks, starting with "Mystery of Helm", an awesome fast song standing out with its riffing. The other two bonus tracks are live renditions of "Eyes and Teeth" and "Cometh Down Hessian" from their earlier albums. Pretty great, but not quite fitting the rest of the album.
If you're looking for true heaviness of metal in the crushing riffs in bass, this is it. The genre created by Black Sabbath has reached another milestone in High on Fire's Snakes for the Divine! It's an album of fantastic diversity you just gotta look out for. A perfect metal adventure through the dark side of Eden!
Favorites: "Snakes for the Divine", "Frost Hammer", "Fire, Flood & Plague", "Holy Flames of the Fire Spitter", "Mystery of Helm"
