Etemen Ænka (studio album) by Dvne

From Mercury 04/13/2021 19:59

(Progressive/Sludge metal with not enough Sludge for my tastes, but a whole lot of great moments. I quite liked this one.)

This album is pretty darn good. It is called a Sludge Metal album by several sites which are to be trusted. To be fair its Progressive Metal and Sludge Metal. So that reveal of 2 major genres attributed to this album with Progressive coming before Sludge somewhat undercuts my whole planned ramble about why I find this kind of Sludge to be not what I look for in Sludge. But whatever, I'll still say that when I think of Sludge Metal I think of a sound so disgustingly gnarly and heavy and oppressive that it is almost cruel. I like to come away from a sludge album feeling a bit dirty (maybe its just the word that makes me think of that but I digress). If you had asked me a few months ago "what subgenre of metal is most intriguing to you, little neophyte bastard, you?" I would have said Sludge. I find something so damn refreshing in albums like Streetcleaner by Godflesh, When the Kite String Pops by Acid Bath and Lysol/Houdini by Melvins. I come away from those albums feeling like I just went through something real, y'know?

But most of the most iconic bands and albums labeled Sludge aren't really like those aformentioned disgusting masses of brutal heaviness. They have elemenmts of that same raging gnarliness, but albums by the likes of Neurosis, Isis, Neurosis, Cult of Luna and of course Neurosis tend to have also elements of - actually majority of - "Post Metal" (hate that description) atmospheric sludge and progressive metal in their sound. I respect this, its cerebral, each album is a journey with many ups and mostly downs, and there are long passages of near-ambient sonic exploration. That's cool. But they have yet to really blow me away or capture me. That may be due to my simple expectations or the general length of these albums being in the 60-75 minute range and you know how I am about most long albums. But anyway, back to this Dvne album... although labeled Sludge metal (but firstly Progressive metal, Ryan, stop lying to your imaginary audience) I mostly heard heady, winding arrangements with half clean almost anthemic vocals and half more angry vocals, with long songs that only occasionally dipped into that glorious disgust of Sludgy riffage, and mostly incorporated melodic slow builds with lots of dynamics followed by some seriously epic anthemic pay offs, and although I liked the album and this 80% of the album once I'd gotten over my disappointment, I would say a bit of disappointment still remains that I am not listening so much to Lysol but more a mix of Lateralus and Through Silver In Blood.

Okay, okay, I'm sure you get it. Now a little more on thsi particular album with a title I don't know how to pronounce by a band I don't know how to pronounce with a cool as fuyck front cover... It's really solid. Weirdly the album gets better and better as it goes. This is weird because from my experience albums I deem "too long" I tend to lose interest as I get to the back half not gain interest. But that run of tracks from the halfway point of track 5 "Omega Severer" to the huge closer "Satuya" is pretty much a solid 40-45 minutes of greatness. I especially adore the least sludgey of all bits here, the solemn almost folk lament of "Asphodel" with that gorgeous female voice coming in and stealing my heart and the show. Any metal album that almost makes me cry and get slightly misty-eyed gets a big boost in my personal opinion of it. And "Asphodel" did just that. And as far as Progressive metal, slow build with acoustic bit, to jarring change to badass air guitar worthy heavy riff, to passionate anthemic bit, huge chorus, some screamed intensity, crazy tempo and drum changes, stretched over 12 minute, closing track drop the mic moments go, "Satuya" is as good as I've heard this year.

Overall, this was solid, it was recorded well (again, can't stress this enough, too clean and Proggy for my sludge tastes), it featured some badass riffs, a tear jerker song, a badass closer, enough sludge metal to make me at least slightly sated, and despite its length of 67 minutes it was engaging enough for 2 straight quite enjoyable listens by yours truly.