Beastwars are big news in their native New Zealand and for good reason, given the sheer zeal and weight of their eponymous debut and follow-up Blood Becomes Fire.
The Death Of All Things proclaims itself to be the very definition of heavy, containing everything you expect from a band on the doomier end of the sludge metal spectrum, from earth-shaking riffs and rumbling basslines to drawn-out, unsettling melodic passages played through mauled amps caked in grime and rust. Vociferous opener Call To The Mountain is perhaps Beastwars’ most robust statement to date, while Holy Man builds to an imperious crescendo.
But while it’s an uncompromisingly bone-shaking affair, there’s plenty of guile to back up the gargantuan core. Devils Of Last Night isn’t afraid to break things down to a more delicate refrain, frontman Matt Hyde takes on the role of grizzled storyteller akin to Swans’ Michael Gira on the searching ideals of Some Sell Their Souls, while the blissful strings of the acoustic The Devil Took Her and affecting, reserved title track deliver an emotional clout as hefty as anything else on the album.
