Short Reviews [Bassoon - 2023 - "Succumbent"]

There are plenty of arguments to be made that Nefarious Industries are one of the most progressive labels around, and yet again we see evidence of that with the second album from New York’s Bassoon. Created in 2007, they initially started as the drum-machine-powered duo of Stuart Popejoy with Harvey Milk bassist Steve Tanner before evolving into the current trio of Popejoy on bass and keyboards with Sean Moran on guitar and John Mettam on drums. They received a great amount of critical respect for their debut release in 2012, but it took until the end of 2023 for their second to be released, and we can only hope it will not take as long for the next one to appear. This is a very heavy album indeed, almost sludge in its appeal at times, doom at others, but incredibly this is all brought together with a huge dose of RIO and Krautrock to create something quite unlike anything else I have heard recently. It blasts with the force of Mastodon in some areas, moves into Magma in others, combines that with elements of Can and Present so the listener never knows quite what to expect next. There are keyboards here and there, but it is the three instruments of guitar, bass and drums working in perfect harmony which make this what it, with any one of them being the lead and the others providing support. This trio does not have room for someone to be hiding, but instead demands all of them need to be at the top of their game at all times and the result is something which is incredibly intense and exciting throughout. Somehow there is also plenty of space in the arrangements so although it is intensely heavy there is also contrast which allows the heaviness to be even harder and in your brain. It would be easy for them to crank up the distortion levels and provide doom overload, and there is the impression it is never too far away from their thoughts, but they also understand King Crimson, Meshuggah, Zeuhl and so much more, and somehow bring it all together in a way that makes perfect sense. Not for those who want their prog to be vanilla and in the mainstream, or those who want their metal to be in 4/4 and not have to think too hard about what is going on, but for those who want their instrumental music to take them in new directions while blasting the speakers off the wall.