Labels: eOne
Review by: Kunal Nandi
After 15 years and six albums, if you don’t like High On Fire by now, you probably never will. They have been up and down for me. Some albums are more about pummel than songcraft, but when they come correct and put an all killer, no filler record out, it’s always some of the smartest dumbass guitar work since Boulder or ‘Action Is Go’-era Fu Manchu.
This one was produced by Kurt Ballou and retains some of ‘Blessed Black Wings” Albini rawness with the glossier (and hence, wrong) feel of the subsequent albums. This is perhaps missing an iconic riff like you would find on ‘Snakes For The Divine”s title track but you do get a consistent listen that’s among their best, continuing their journey to a brighter, more song-based vision after the early days of gloriously crude, almost Krautrocking repetition that could double as background revision music (in my case) and a soundtrack for cleaving an axe into your enemy’s skull.
It’s just good to see that there is still a band that gets out there and does things properly, with no airs and graces, no viking outfits and no compromise. Just guys playing rock (except these guys are hewn from fucking granite).