High on Fire - De vermis mysteriis (2012)^{Release ID: 5156}

I have only really had a passing relationship with Oakland's High On Fire to date. I don't know why particularly as I have enjoyed the couple of albums I have heard previously, Blessed Black Wings and Death Is This Communion. Both of those were from the mid-2000's and so I have jumped forward a few years to 2012's De vermis mysteriis. There is no great divergence from the earlier albums and it consists once more of HOF's sludgy take on stoner metal. Most of the tracks fall into one of two camps, either pretty fast-paced, almost thrashy, stoner metal with a hard edge or a more doomy, slower take where the sludginess is more to the fore. The production of the album was handled by Converge's Kurt Ballou and he has done a bang-up job as the sound is super thick whilst still maintaining a superb clarity where every nuance of the instrumentation can be heard clearly, the drums and bass are beefy-sounding and certainly provide a solid foundation for the guitar work, whether it be the fast, intense riffing of tracks like Bloody Knuckles and the title track, or the more considered and heavier-sounding, slower riffs of Madness of an Architect or Romulus and Remus. It is unsurprisingly this slower material that I prefer, it sounding more intense and crushing than the thrashier stuff.

Overall this is a pretty solid album that does have a superb production job and while the tracks all possess the requisite heaviness and there are no duds, I'm not convinced that any of them are super-standout either.

I truthfully don't have a lot to say about this album. What I will say however is that High on Fire had themselves a very impressive 2010s. They were one of the decades most consistent bands who just kept making killer music. And their music was impressive; stoner/sludge metal with a hint of thrash thrown in on top of it all to make it super dense and encapsulating. I'm not much of a stoner myself, but this album is so easy to get lost in even if you are sober, which makes for a truly transcendent experience.

This album is heavy, relentless and unforgiving, which does lead me to one of its biggest strengths: its precision. This record doesn't sound like it was recorded in the drummers basement late on a Tuesday night. It's very clean and very easy to digest. I know that Matt Pike is a legend in the sludge metal scene, and this album is proof of that for me. Very solid stuff.