{"id":63752,"date":"2017-03-29T11:00:34","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T16:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/?p=63752"},"modified":"2017-03-29T08:07:28","modified_gmt":"2017-03-29T13:07:28","slug":"review-berefts-lands-carves-a-path-in-doom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/review-berefts-lands-carves-a-path-in-doom\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Bereft\u2019s <i>Lands<\/i> Carves a Path in Doom"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>The hand of doom has many fingers. Whether you\u2019re lighting up, fighting dragons, or attending a burial, there\u2019s a doom for that. <strong>Bereft<\/strong> take on a sort of post-blackened doom, if I had to categorize it, but I\u2019d prefer to let it speak for itself.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In their <a href=\"https:\/\/bereftwi.bandcamp.com\/album\/lost-ages\" target=\"_blank\">debut EP <\/a>(<em>Lost Ages<\/em>, 2014), the doom was present but less impressive than the post-black offerings. I never felt that sense of dread that should come with the genre, as the style was there but didn\u2019t convey its purpose. It\u2019s a good EP, despite me being seemingly tough on it, but there\u2019s a reason for that. The jump they made between then and now was subtle, but made all the difference in the world.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"100\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/v=2\/track=1619705322\/size=venti\/bgcol=262626\/linkcol=ff900a\/\" style=\"position:relative;display:block;width:400px;height:100px;\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><em>Lands<\/em> opens strong, not with speed, but with a loud and bestial anger that shakes the loose rocks off the cave wall. The vocals immediately show their impressive strength with an intensity that I like to see in my post-metal. Instead of immediately building on the slow start, Bereft keep stringing you along by switching to a brief sampling of their clean vocals, which are reminiscent of Justin Brodrick\u2019s depressed echoed crooning in <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gBs-cZs9m8U\" target=\"_blank\">Jesu<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0<em>Ok, this is interesting,<\/em> you may think. <em>Two sides of doom that aren\u2019t often seen together is pretty unique, but so far nothing has really ripped my skull from my flesh and place an ax through it<\/em>. But, just when you get settled in this sort of sludgy doom groove, a pummeling drum roll leads you into the black for the first time. It\u2019s a swift and abrasive transition, but where the magic lies is how they subtly shift this new aggressiveness back into the original doom riff and the tremolo slices perfectly though those clean vocals. It\u2019s not a <em>layering<\/em>, it\u2019s a brilliant <em>evolution<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Ritual\u201d continues this shape shifting with their blackened style dominant this time. While the guitar and drums absolutely rip through the middle portion of the song, I have to admire the vocal approach. Not content to just stick with one style, as we saw in the opening track, the vocalists trade off verses. The high and low contrasting growls show they are not satisfied with letting any part of their music get stale. Due to the range of styles, tones, and speed found on <em>Lands<\/em>, I can\u2019t imagine the production job was a walk in the park. No matter what the band does, the engineering is just clear enough capture the highs and lows without being sterile.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"100\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/v=2\/track=3855039372\/size=venti\/bgcol=262626\/linkcol=FF900A\/\" style=\"position:relative;display:block;width:400px;height:100px;\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The 14-minute conclusion, &#8220;Waning Light&#8221; starts very slow. Obnoxiously slow. <em>Perfectly slow<\/em>. The plotting pace is a testament to the virtue of desolation. You can only understand the beauty of complexity once you know what it would be like stripped away. A quiet tremolo eventually shows its face up in the atmosphere, like a blackened aurora borealis on a bleak gray sky, and while you are distracted looking up, a blast beat slips into the groove and the ground opens up beneath you.<\/p>\n<p>As you are falling in the mandatory cool down section, the drums (provided by Michael Kadnar (<strong>Downfall of Gaia<\/strong> and<strong> Black Table<\/strong>), who filled in on drums while the band was looking for a new member) continue to innovate with an unexpected extended-fill that leads to one of the most outstanding conclusions I have heard on a recent metal album. And just after four songs, albeit roughly 45 minutes combined, the album concludes with an exultant bang. You don\u2019t feel the need for more or less, it&#8217;s just <em>complete<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Lands<\/em> sticks out in this sudden resurgence of doom. Perhaps it\u2019s most important feature is that it\u2019s not<em> too much<\/em> of anything. It\u2019s sludgy, melodic, angry, depressed, unrelenting, and deliberate, but never for longer than you can handle.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">4.5\/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_4-5_of_5.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-38031\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_4-5_of_5-1024x234.jpg?resize=960%2C219&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"219\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_4-5_of_5.jpg?resize=1024%2C234&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_4-5_of_5.jpg?resize=300%2C68&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/NEW_TOILETSCALE_4-5_of_5.jpg?w=1249&amp;ssl=1 1249w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Lands<\/em> is out March 31 through <a href=\"https:\/\/prostheticrecords.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Prosthetic Records<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The hand of doom has many fingers. Whether you\u2019re lighting up, fighting dragons, or attending a burial, there\u2019s a doom for that. Bereft take on a sort of post-blackened doom, if I had to categorize it, but I\u2019d prefer to let it speak for itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":63753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Bereft have doomed Joaquin's heart with their latest record Lands.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[70],"tags":[6582,66,2996,208,7974,5346],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Bereft.jpg?fit=700%2C437&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63752"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}