Lady heavy (because the band is made up of all ladies!), Swiss
sludge/doom/death/black crew Shever has been completely under my radar for the
entirety of their career it would seem. They’ve already released an LP, EP, multiple
demos, and have made a handful of noteworthy appearances at festivals and the like.
How, I’ve managed to avoid them until Total Rust got involved with their music is beyond
me. Whatever my mental malfunction can be attributed to, the band’s 2nd longer player
Rituals, and first for Total Rust Music is a delightful slab of dark, cave creeping sludge
with stark, memorable riffage, a variety of different vocal approaches, and a knack for
twitching melodicism that sets them apart from the ever growing pack of bands that are
playing this style all around the world in this day and age.
An intoxicating elixir of ghastly clean chords, sparse cymbal taps, buried bass notes, and
the faint crackle of a fire open up the record and one of its finest offerings, “Ritual of
Chaos.” The distorted drone of electric guitar isn’t far behind, providing a cyclic, rotating
buzz until a whopper of sludge/doom riffing unfurls in sinking, serpentine motion that pits
a slight Sabbath groove against the all-conquering retch of Winter’s bleakness. Musically,
things shift from dissociated, time hopping texture work that allows the rhythm section
to dig into deep repetition, while the vocals whisper menacingly over drawn out, singular
guitar notes before the band’s entire direction combusts in a puff of vitriolic, blackened
vocal screams, steadfast doom groove, and pulse pounding percussion. Eventually, the
soul swallowing might of the band’s negative riff vacuum opens up into faster, mid-paced
doom/death crush with forceful double bass pounding and a lushly tangled thicket of
Swedish inspired, melodic lead guitar manna. There’s even a featured moment of
expressive, crystalline singing vocals that enter the fray midway through and add even
more intricate shading to the feral doom riff dementia. “Delirio” is an even more labored
beating, expelling a rotten, gum disease addled breath of vomiting vocal chunks and
thick, suicide riffage. But these shEver gals know how to stir up their songwriting vat into
altered concoctions of the classic sound; pulling back the distortion long enough to let
melodic, minor lead notes linger amidst a stew-y churn of blues based, low-end grooves,
sinewy toms, and bewitching whispers. The song alternates frequently between ethereal
rawness and bludgeoning doom heft until the pace kicks up into a roving, head-banging
Sabbath groove with surgical percussion that matches a staccato snare couplet with the
band’s every twist of a riff. Synchronized riff/rhythm looping and sneering, screamed
vocals make up the majority of, “Je Suis Nee,” the lumbering percussion offsetting the
deeply encrusted, icy shards of lead guitar thusly rendering the tune as a split difference
between doom-y power chord meditations and ferocious black metal mood swings. Plenty
of introspection is introduced on the back to back moonrise jams, “Souls Colliding” and
“(You Are) The Mirror,” the former pitting post-rock ambience against alternating
clean/screamed vocals, rattling distortion, and the eventual materialization of tangible
heavy riffs, while the latter remains atmospheric in the vocal department but dishes out
shEver – rituals
HellRide Music
url: http://www.hellridemusicforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25878
straightforward, chest caving doom writhes by the bucketful. Closer, “Tha He Na Te”
breaks things down instrumental with a plethora of almost HOF/Sleep style doom riffs
really bringing the intensity full circle in the second half.
Shever is a top shelf find for the extreme doom/sludge/black/death fanatic. The gals
don’t stick to one style, but instead shuffle up 3 or 4 vigorously, distill the doom/sludge
element as the primary focus, and shake the brew manically until it explodes. I’ll
definitely have to hear what they’ve been up to in the past based on the strength of
Rituals, but for now this one will whet my appetite nicely until I get around to hearing the
back catalog.
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