The art they have is spectacular. High On Fire to remain brutally authentic, counting on milestones such as opening for Metallica, winning a Grammy in 2019, and having a list of collaborators and former members who are the world‘s sludge dynasty.
“Cometh The Storm” It is a solid testimony of what the band led by the great Matt Pike is today, almost twenty-five years after their debut album. Judging by the vitality of this collection of songs that span almost an hour, the band is in ideal health and in a renewed bad mood that is scary.
Opening the task is “Lambsbread” a hairy beast in the form of a song that dominates the storm with perfect groove riffs and tempers the character with passages of hippy improvisation. “Burning Down” It brings them closer to the stoner that they knew how to feed so much and leaves them on their knees in front of the beloved altar of Black Sabbath. Because the epic, when slow and sticky, is even more epic. The vocals rasp and the guitar solos transport. Every snare hit is a beat of a bodybuilder’s heart.
After the headline “Cometh The Storm” –ambient piece that becomes progressive (that crescendo!) and ends apocalyptic–, comes one of the jewels of the set, “Dark way”, which means “dark path” in Turkish. The execution on saz (classical Anatolian instrument) by bassist Jeff Matz leaves the entire work in another dimension. It is also in these intentions where High On Fire They distance themselves from the average: the agitating power of this exotic instrumental and its undoubted folkloric and incidental character are an event to be appreciated.
To get back into the good routine “The Beating” reminds us of the group’s dependence on the Motörhead legacy, “Lighting Beard” changes speed for tribalism and continues to impact, in the same way as the title that closes the work “Darker Fleece”, a doom symphony of almost ten minutes.
Although brutally intense and psychedelic, “Cometh The Storm” It hooks you like few others in style. Eight of your ten neighbors may complain if you play it loud, but the other two will ask you, when you pass each other on the stairs, what that wonderful thing you were listening to is.
Cometh The Storm de High On Fire