Lovingly pinched from Teeth of the Divine: I rather enjoyed Hull‘s full length debut, Sole Lord as it was a nice sludgy record bolstered by a variety of smooth layered vocals, not unlike Baroness. However, once I hit play on their sophomore record, it was apparent Hull has changed up their game a bit. For the better.
While the album still has traces of a more languid, dreamy take on sludgy post rock, overall the album is much more abrasive and harsh, especially vocally, at times surprisingly so. It starts immediately with epic 11 minute opener ‘Earth From Water’ with a blackened, feral blast beat, d-beat salvo and snarling, gruff vocals and I’m reminded of the first Withered record or Fall of Efrafa‘s first CD, then it bridges into a Crowbar-ish lurch. And that’s all in the first two minutes as the track shifts and morphs into lumbering grooves and sprawling peaks and valleys.
And the song’s length also signals the band’s shift to much longer songs than Sole Lord, whether due to the concept of the album (the story of two conflicting Mayan brothers), making for a much deeper album than Sole Lord. The balance is still there between traditional ebbing post rock builds and hues and epic mountainous crescendos, but when Hull put their foot on the pedal its much more gravel than sludge.
Continue reading: Hull – Beyond the Lightless Sky « Teeth of the Divine.
Tags: Album of the day, Beyond the Lightless Sky, Hull, sludge, Teeth of the Divine, The End Records
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 at 12:25 pm and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day, Roadburn Recommended . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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