Everson Poe - The Tower (Full album PREMIERE, 2023) | Black metal, doom metal
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In times as convoluted and draining as we're constantly having, there's always good use of stirring yet comforting ideas and perspectives going around and music is the perfect vessel for such to manifest through, something y'all are probably familiar with moving around this channel and extreme metal in itself. Today, we have one of a kind work from this year that will probably land in many people's AOTY list by its own right: "The Tower", most recent artistic effort by Mae Shults, queer trans multi-instrumentalist based in Chicago, as EVERSON POE. What we have here is a block of work divided in two songs over 25 minutes each (fans of Lustre can celebrate now, not expecing atmospheres though), in a masterful blend of black metal with doom stepping into sludge. "The Tower" is a concept album named after the tarot card with the same name, pursuing to represent what the card mean implies and in its both sides, in the words of the artist: <<[...] the tower represents change in the most monumental sense. when upright, it portrays potentially groundbreaking progress; when reversed, it signals the destruction of false foundations. both of these meanings can be positive and negative; a dialectic that, in this case, acts as the outline for the story of a collection of organizations that seek to hold back and even eliminate those who are othered by their gender identity[…]>>.
Both songs, 'I. Upright' and 'II. Reversed' also reflect this theme and symbolism about the tower with lyrics as impactful as being precisely struck by lightning could be, holding the voice of the protagonist in this epic work, the first trans woman executed by the government for being trans, giving this character in the fiction the shape of a religious martyr accompanied by voice samples adding emphasis in the given context (featuring the north american politician, representative Zooey Zephyr, first trans woman to be elected to the Montana legislature with the Democratic Party, coming from LGTB+ activism), showcasing the naturally deep emotional level of the album. Sonically, beyond overall genre / style features, Mae has achieved to build the uneasy of such a topic and writing beyond lyrics shown from start, by heavy and droning doomy tempos and aching vocals (not only Mae's, but from a handful of guests adding their own seen alive in ominous chorals and screaming backings). Far from being any predicatble, "The Tower" will surprise you in all of its movements through this solid work of a bit less than an hour; a work that asks from the listener to pay attention, to care for every detail put in form for an experience that is enjoyable as it is tough. This is an album to stay with, to crown an outstanding discography as Mae has since they started around 2009.