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Rating: The "The Mass" (read "Them Ass") is a strange band from Oakland. I don't care to classify them. I discovered them through a friend and I will never stop thanking him because I don't think I could have come across them otherwise.
In just eight months, they churned out their previous work "City Of Dis" and this "Perfect Picture Of Wisdom And Boldness," which is a refinement of a basic formula that synthesizes dark metal, progressive post-hardcore, and free jazz. Moreover, almost post-rock parts emerge, and there is a great effort in using rarefaction as an element that builds tension and dynamism. A melting pot that, however, does not create confusion because it is composed and performed with uncommon technical skill and intelligence, especially within these genres. Vast and varied influences, therefore, often considered incompatible but giving birth to a creature perhaps still perfectible but frightening in its being more evolved than usual. Listen to what Matt Waters, vocalist and saxophonist (!!), says:
"The record had to be loud, but at times delicate. Hard but also capable of being quiet. It had to be an experience containing many different things within itself that most people consider irreconcilably contradictory. I think we succeeded."
Hell, if it's true, maybe a bit presumptuous, but hell, they did it. Just one guitar (Tom O'Donnel), one drum kit (Tyler Cox), one bass (Matthew Solberg), one sax, and a stretched voice reminiscent of a certain post-hardcore school. Nothing else. No, and I mean no overdubs, no use of any digital oddities (again, the vocalist: "We avoid having even a single second of our music pass through a computer. It's all analog. Screw computers.") and listen to this: direct capture recording of the album!! Eight tracks for which I now have total love. Just over 60 minutes of heavy metallic layers fused into prog turns that unravel into slow and surprising melodic openings (the opening "This is your final dream"), spiral-linked riffs torn by a mournful and dark sax ("Cloven head"), free-jazz fading into martial progressions of trumpet and sax ("Corpseweilder"). And again, majestic decaying and sick soundscapes like those created in the super-psychedelic "Meditation on the same carcass", squiggly sinusoidal talking-jazz transforming into outbursts reminiscent of the best High On Fire ("Ride of juns" and "Little climbers of nifelheim"). Ending beautifully with "The bringer", a bastard seed between Van Der Graaf Generator and Saint Vitus. Try to imagine.....
In short, if I haven't made it clear, this album (which as far as I'm concerned, is close to being the metal album of 2005) deserves a listen (more than one, to be honest!). And not just from metal or post-hardcore fans, but from anyone who likes to approach a work that is inherently leaden and dark but is light years away from being a derivative, substandard, or God forbid, boring product. In my opinion, it represents a yet relatively unexplored path in metal, ripe for new interesting directions. The "The Mass" have released so far two albums (their first two!) incredibly one more beautiful and bewildering than the other. They will (I hope!) become huge, for now, they are just great.
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