Heirs (Australia)
Brent Stegeman � Guitars/Synthesizers/Programming
Damian Coward � Drums/Electronics
Laura Bradfield � Bass
Ian Jackson � Guitars/Synthesizers
HEIRS - FOWL PRESS RELEASE / BAND BIOGRAPHY
Upon returning to Melbourne after 67 shows across Europe and Japan, Heirs commenced work on their second album, Fowl.
With the baton of core song-writing being handed from drummer Damian Coward to guitarist, Brent Stegeman, Heirs turned their attention toward their electronic underbelly, honing in on the industrial vapour and blackened ambience that permeated their debut, Alchera, distilling the underlying sense of melody with an arresting sense of dread. Fowl displays a deliberate shift towards a broader sonic palette, enabling the band to incorporate disparate influences and approaches to create a sound that is uniquely their own.
Fowl deals with the human processing of the ornery � the filth we feed upon to entertain us, to sate our hunger, to gratify our sexual desires, to escape our reality or simply to facilitate our survival. Fowl is an exploration of the consumption of filth, the nourishment it provides and the way we excrete it back into the world, calling into question the notion of morality and its place in an increasingly faithless populace.
From wheezing blasts of industrial steam to weeping passages of gothic suspense, Fowl is a fully realised analysis of the repugnant. Its pugilistic rhythmic foundation, reverb soaked guitars, crackling electronics and deadpan dark-wave meditation create an abstract dronescape of industrial dirge and metallic ambience coalesced into an ambitious whole.
Recorded and mixed by Neil Thomason at Head Gap in June/July 2010, and produced by Brent Stegeman and Damian Coward, Fowl is a 45-minute journey inside the proverbial machine and represents a band confronting the visual and aural atrocities of the quotidian.
Brent Stegeman: Guitar/Synth/Electronics/Programming
Damian Coward: Drums/Electronics
Laura Bradfield: Bass Guitar
Ian Jackson: Guitar
with
Miles Brown: Theremin/Synth/Electronics
(Quelle: www.denovali.com)
This Australian band shares some members of Whitehorse, who some of you might know from their double cd that came out on 20 Buck Spin a few years ago. With that in mind, you'd probably expect Heirs to traffic in a similiar brand of excruciating sludge, but they're actually quite different, playing a brand of dark soaring instrumental rock mixed up with some Godflesh/Swans influences.
The first track "Plague Asphyx" opens with a wheezing industrial noise loop like rhythmic blasts of steam, as a pounding drumbeat kicks in alongside a massive droning bassline, soon joined by a queasy, trebly guitar lead and sheets of caustic noise. We're talking total Godflesh territory here, a hypnotic industrial dirge with that booming heavy drumbeat repeated again and again, the tension slowly becoming cranked as more noise is fed in, and additional guitars are piled on top, no release in sight, until finally in the last minute a fucking devestating sludge riff drops in, immense and crushing, appearing for only a brief minute until the song closes out on another loop of static bursts. No vocals, no verse/chorus song structure, just a vicious machine-groove pummeling you for five minutes. Killer! But the next track switches gears completely. Opening with a delicate guitar melody, "Mockery" unfurls softly layered post-rock prettiness over a slow, throbbing drumbeat, while streaks of distorted and delayed guitar fly overhead. Sounds a lot like Red Sparowes with its cinematic grandeur and evocative guitars and motorik drums, but after a while the guitars begin to become more distorted, and heavier, and swirling electronic fx and noise begins to envelop the song, and halfway in it morphs abruptly into plodding sludge for a minute or two before returning to the epic layered guitars, before once again sliding into total doom at the end, a super-heavy sludge riff surrounded by the ever-present textured noise and pyres of smoldering amp feedback.
"Cabal" starts off similiarly to the previous track with more moody, somber guitar melody woven into gorgeous counterpoint effect, and when the rhythm section enter this time, their playing is definitley heavier, the bass thick and distorted, the drums loud and pounding. The song winds slowly over the course of the track, building to a climactic finale where the guitars erupt into a wall of sound, finally flaring out and leaving just a single acoustic strummed guitar. "Mandril" takes on a darker hue, with simple, repetitive drums and looping, Slinty guitars locked in an angular groove over billowing synth drones, then kicks into a huge droning riff with almost mechanical drums throbbing underneath it, like a fast-paced Neurosis riff looped over and over and blanketed with ominous industrial drones, or a more tribal Godflesh. That's followed by "The White Swell", one of the prettiest tracks on here. Again, the band creates a dark, mysterious vibe out of slow moving instrumental post rock, though this one is slower and more languid than the rest, with some beautiful melodic playing and an almost folky feel that reminds me of Neil Young, especially when one of the guitarists comes in with a moving emotive solo halfway in. Kinda feels like some of the newer Earth stuff too, I suppose, but with a jazzier, heavier feel.
And then the last song, "Russia", opening weirdly with the bleeping melody of some electronic toy and the tinkling of a door chime before the band blasts in with a super catchy, wall-of-guitar melody, that plays out for a minute before fading off into space, replaced by whispers and murky guitar notes stretched out over crackling feedback and rumbling drones, an abstract dronescape building in volume and thickness while the guitar slowly gets more distorted, eventually turning into a massive jet-engine roar of distortion and guitar noise. This stuff is beautiful and weighty, a cool fusion of contempo cinematic rock and industrial dirge and metallic ambience collected together into an ambitious whole that's highly recommended to fans of Red Sparowes, Hand Of Fatima, Disappearer, Windmills By The Ocean, etc. Comes in a cool looking gatefold jacket with spot varnish printing and a full color insert.
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