Even when you're receiving what seems like every new album – major and minor – that is birthed into this here metal realm in the form of label-sanctioned promos, you still end up running across a surprise band that you've somehow slept on previous releases. Chapel Hill's MAKE are my latest such discovery, the trio having previously released a single full length album and a small cottage industry of EPs and even an under-the-radar live album.
The Golden Veil reveals a band wise beyond their few short years, a lived-in synthesis of a number of prominent (read: trendy) metal subgenres that they nonetheless make their own: a bit of spacey post-rock, a walloping dose of sludge (particularly in the fiercely menacing dual bark of Scott Endres and Spencer Lee), the requisite shot of doom and, of course, the experimental ambience of Neurosis crossed with Dylan Carlson's penchant for rustic tone poetry.
"The Immortal" represents the strongest showing of the latter two influences: a plaintive, cleanly sung bit of reflective Americana for most of its running time, eventually winding down into an interlude so subdued that it approximates dead silence at normal listening levels before exploding with cacophonous fervor. The whole quiet/loud dichotomy has been done to death so many times that it's extremely rare that an instance of it catches me off guard, but this one was well hidden and not really telegraphed at all. This may mark the first time I've had to question whether a music review shouldn't come with a spoiler alert.
"We Are Coiled" follows next and appears to be going for a similar build up, particularly given the song title, but instead it just kind of simmers along for five minutes before fading out uneventfully. MAKE have certainly mastered the art of variety, but this track represents an opportunity to get a little more consistency under their belts. It's not entirely a momentum killer, but it comes dangerously close to sounding like a placeholder track that was intended to later be filled in by something more compelling.
Indeed, one's preference for this band will hinge largely on how much atmospheric droning you're willing to tolerate in relation to the payoff. Overall, though, patience is generally rewarded, as in "The Architect", an 11-minute epic that spends fully half its running time slowly tautening the nerves, with the inevitable eruption achieving near black metal levels of misanthropic rage.
For my money, there really aren't that many groups in the post-metal/drone milieu that I wouldn't say could afford to tighten up their material a bit, so I wouldn't want to sound like damning with faint praise to position that as a sticking point here. MAKE are about as ready for prime time as this confluence of related genres tends to get, and their voice deserves – nay, demands – to be heard. Shots fired.
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