Review by Rexorcist for Hell (USA) - Hell II (2010)

The Hell debut was a good album, but it didn't offer anything new.  From what I've heard, Hell II is considered to be the second worst of the four released Hell albums, but I plan on listening to them in order to see how Hell produced as a band, and hopefully to see more value in the drone metal genre.  After playing it, I realized I finally found a drone album I would BUY.  And I don't even buy my favorite albums since I get most of them online.  I would buy this to support him.  However, I warn you, this album is not for the faint of heart.  Do not listen to this album unless you've mentally prepared for the apocalypse.

The opener, "Gog," lasts a third of the album.  The first thing I noticed was that the heaviness hadn't suffered, and I started thinking of Electric Wizard, specifically the album Dopesmoker.  The black metal vocals and drumming helped make the opener a little more unique than the guitars would let on, and I welcomed them before I even noticed I had, almost like it was second nature to expect something new this time, as I hoped for.  But the vocals soon became some of the deepest, and most monstrous growls I have ever heard.  Honestly, that kinda scares me.  It didn't even sound like he had altered his voice with tech.  And this was just the first fifth of the opening 20-minute epic.  I have rarely heard an album that describes darkness so well, even in four minutes.  After five, it became a mix of doom and black metal, and I was really eager to see what would happen next, but patient and would leave the album to do its thing.  I was putting my trust in it to constantly progress.  This is drone mastery, as well as some of the most spirited metal I've ever heard, and they say number III is better.  Even as it went back to being the sludgiest sludge ever, I still felt the black metal power creeping on me.  Seamless transition from one metal genre to another seems to be the defining trait of this slow-burner, Hell pun not intended.

Then came the following track, "Umbilicus," and I checked to see that it was only eight minutes.  As the brutality assaulted me with M.S.W.'s black metal vocals aiding the incurable fuzziness, I felt disappointed that this track would only be eight minutes long, so I enjoyed the brutality as much as I could.  That keen mix of death doom and sludge with just a hint of prog was... too heavy to pass up, but the actual songwriting never once suffered.  The song offered me one surprise after another, and I enjoyed every repeated melody, knowing that M.S.W.'s sense of timing was worth it.  Once again, after the actual melody ends, the album shifts into a loud drone solo mixing ethereal ambiance with a frightful occultism as faint tribal drumming brought the beat up.  Genius work.  But this noise dissipated and in its place came a Sabbath-style melody with no drums attached: all strings.  If I ever got the chance, I would play this shit for Ozzy.  And it did turn into sludgy drone again, and the two elements complimented each other like they were fucking brothers.  The eight minutes was worth it.

Suddenly, the music stops, and the third track begins: "Metnal," starting with the exact same kind of stoner doom you'd expect from Electric Wizard's heaviest songs, but including a black metal melody overtime.  This songs lasts a satisfactory fifteen minutes, so I knew I was in for another wild ride.  And occasionally there are slam death growls mingled with the black metal vocals.  SLAM DEATH SQUEALS.  The album treats the mix of stoner doom and black metal like it's absolutely nothing, and then suddenly we throw slam death into the mix?  What in the actual fuck!?  And now we just stop and go into a lightly symphonic drone with a hint of Eno-style ambiance!  What's next!  The jazzy electronica of Vangelis's Blade Runner soundtrack?  Nope.  Scratch that.  A heavily melodic acoustic work.  Does it feel out of place?  Slightly.  Very slightly.  It carries emotion over fairly well, and once it transitions to powerful black metal, it feels like a proper introduction to the second half of the song.  And once that ends, it's back to the acoustica.  Agalloch rings heavily in my mind, except the glory of nature isn't here to comfort me.  The listener is still stuck in a mental image of hell.  And as expected, we go back to the beautiful black metal, but with a different and heavier melody, before devolving back into the stoner doom, but with more sludge.  As we go back to the defining sound of the first act, we get a slight hint of symphonic dungeon synth to help make the ending a little more epic before devolving into a droney and perfectly fitting outro.

The final track, the fifteen minute "Trucid," begins with the same kind of post-metal intro you'd expect from Agalloch or Solstafir, relying more on emotion and repetition with light hints of melody to bring out the raw emotion, but tamely and softly so as not to overdo it.  New, but fitting.  As expected, but to no dissapoint, it very careful evolves into an explosion of raw power, offering a few fake-out build-ups in the background with deep drone guitars before the loud and fast-paced black metal takes over.  Going from slow post-metal to untamed hyperactivity like it was nothing and adding a doom melody in the background was the perfect way to go about this sense of transition.  And the next transition to take over is an incredibly fuzzy, heavy and drug-ridden rhythm of repetition and anger that can only be described as true metal.  But once another drone midtro kicks in, we go back to the post-metal melodies but with greater speed and a higher sense of melody, almost like a band of travelling minstrels.  Somehow, this fits into the album, and I can't explain how.  Maybe the deep sound of the acoustic guitar taking over?  Either way, it fades out into more drone and black metal, just letting the sound carry away the raw apocalyptic feel of the album.  The wailing of the singer defines it all perfectly, crying in pain for his lack of salvation.  The album ends where "Trucid" began, with a dark and melancholy post-metal riff reminiscent of Agalloch or Solstafir.

This is what the apocalypse sounds like.  Honestly, this is probably the single heaviest album I've ever heard.  There were times it pushed the buttons of diversity, occasionally ringing into softer acoustic music, but that didn't stop anything.  If anything, the fact thatM.S.W. could pull it off only proves how much focus on the art of metal he put into this album.  The album covers a plethora of metal genres, all of which hit extremes unlinke anything I've ever heard.

The debut might've been just another good sludge album that wasn't too special, but this was far from generic.  Hell II combined the steady timing of Dopesmoker and the hyper-consistent genre-hopping of Burnt Offerings and cranked both up.  In terms of quality, I'd put this somewhere between Burnt Offerings (the high) and Dopesmoker (the low).  Hell II redefines sadness, anger, moral lapse, drugs, timing and atmosphere  And a big part of me believes that I may not succumb to the conformism of favoring Hell III once I get to it.  This album isn't just an album made by an act who nicknamed himself Hell.  This album is HELL, the perfect representation, a spiritual soundtrack to Dante's Inferno.  The only potential flaw I can think of is that this might be too much even for some drone / sludge / doom fans, because this is the scariest album I've ever heard, even more so than Massive Conspiracy Against All Life by Leviathan.  This album is the incarnation of slow metal, always getting the timing and diversity down perfectly.  This is everything I look for in metal and holds true to every standard I set for the greatest music albums ever.