It’s been an incredible six years since High On Fire’s last album, Electric Messiah and its evil Santa cover. Since then, High On Fire has tasted Grammy success, Matt Pike posited as the logical successor to Lemmy Kilminster’s title of biggest badass in rock … and then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
With his long-term interest in Nibiru, David Icke and fringe theories in general, Pike fell down the plandemic rabbit hole – not unlike fellow doom legend Wino – and fell from grace, even being documented by Rolling Stone on his seeming descent.
The pandemic is still with us, and so is High On Fire. My concern here is with the sludgy sophistication of Pike’s latest offering, not with the naivete and health risks of his publicly stated opinions. So, we have a powerful trio, with long-term bassist Jeff Matz playing supple, bottom-heavy parts that negate any need for a second six-stringer, and Coady Willis of Big Business, who for several years acquitted himself admirably playing drums alongside Dale Crover in Melvins, which is a bit like successfully duetting with Freddie Mercury. You need to be on the level of David Bowie or Monserrat Caballe to do it credibly.Cometh The Storm comes charging at us with “Lambsbread”, a manic opening track with miles of mountainous riffs and a phlegmy, raspy vocal attack. Coady Willis is, to use the technical term, metal af here.This is a vintage album opener, but the band varies it up with a more rolling, groovy section before a blazing solo and a return to piledriver mode.
Drowning the senses in gallons of fuzz, “Burning Down” is a mid-paced stormer with Pike in especially demonic voice. A questing, surging solo reminds us this is all somehow Tony Iommi territory. There’s no letup in power trio detailing as “Trismegistus” splits the difference between Motörhead, thrash metal and droning sludge. The fourth song is dial-back time with title track “Cometh The Storm” riding in on tribalistic drums and thrumming guitar. The big riff is never far, but this song is relatively introspective, even nodding to the more hypnotic sides of Pike’s old band, but interspersing every dreamy sequence with doom out with my tomb out riffing. I like the slow plodding side of metal myself and this song made me doom out with my tomb out, although there’s a definite post-metal shimmer as well.Bassist Jeff Matz has long been interested in middle eastern music and “Karanük Yol” is a largely acoustic passage that drenches us in aural oud and attar, setting the stage for “Sol’s Golden Course”, which is more mid-tempo spiralling riffs and craggy disdain. “Tough Guy” is a snarl of a song, tangled up in grue but weaving subtly spacious moments into its roar. “The Beating” is like an alternate universe rework of Skid Row’s “Slave To The Grind” with Neanderthal sinew and soloing in the crazed manner of vintage Thom Warrior.
“Lightning Beard” is more thrash gone feral, with Matz pursuing his own melodic apotheosis for part of a searing Pike solo. It’s over in a flash – the human organism wasn’t evolved to withstand such ambient pressure too long. “Hunting Shadows” wails and lumbers like a wounded beast, still graceful and mighty in its downfall. Lastly, “Darker Fleece” delivers the black sheep epic needed to close out this album. It’s all done in less than an hour, so listen twice.So there we have it. High On Fire, having flown close to the sun, show that their blessed black wings aren’t about to fall off. This is a solid, even superior (although not the ultimate) album from Pike and co. I expect much moshing to it, a slew of mobile phone videos of a burly shirtless man playing his Gibson, and with any justice at least a Grammy nomination. I’d have enjoyed more middle eastern experimentation, and I’m still waiting for Pike to deliver a full-on acoustic blues epic; but in the meantime, this album gets four hooves up.
-Jayaprakash Satyamurthy-
