Been a while since I last heard Glassing, and I guess in the intervening years they’ve ramped up the black metal side of their sound. Truth be told, it suits them. While everything might’ve been washed in a stark-yet-shimmery filter that’s more moonlit icescape than armpit-smelling basement, however, you can still readily detect the noise-rock and post-hardcore particles swirling round in the mix. ‘Dire’, for example, opens like it could be a wonky Jawbox song, and in amongst the bloodcurdling shrieks and tremolo-picked crags you also get moments of pure chugga-chugga thunder. ‘Sulk’ leans even more heavily into these elements as it reaches its grunted finale: a series of lumpen, Neanderthal monosyllables that cap three minutes of chaotic elegance like someone raucously farting at the ballet. Both tracks are absolute winners in a KEN-mode-gone-Hexis kinda way, and I now I have the pleasure of digging back into the stuff I missed when the band drifted off my radar while also looking forward to whatever they do in the future.
