#hypaethral

Photo by Sam Carcasole

Should sludge metal be hummable? Want some melody mixed in with the magma? Bands have asked similar questions about tempering sludge’s usually relentless ugliness — see especially YOB’s incendiary Our Raw Heart (2018). But Mike Scheidt, YOB’s frontman and creative force, is a past master of metal textures, and the singular source for that record’s surfeit of sentiment is intrinsic to Scheidt’s very body. Pyres, on the other hand, is a Toronto band offering here its second LP in 13 or so years of infrequent activity. As no less an authority than Japhy Ryder (and Dogberry, too) has told us, “Comparisons are odious.” But Pyres is swinging for the fences on Yun, urging listeners to open up to big riffs and even bigger feels. And the opening strains of the LP’s longest cut “A Depth Charge in a Dead Sea” closely evoke YOB’s “Beauty in Falling Leaves.” It’s provoking, at the very least. But is there substance beyond the provocation?

Lest anyone forget that sludge metal was pioneered by former punks like Neurosis, Grief, and Dystopia (not to mention Black Flag's pivotal second album), Mordeo have emerged from Chico, CA to drag the genre back to its crusty roots. Their eponymous debut will be out on March 27th through Hypaethral, Forever Never Ends, And Shove Records.

[photo by Julianna Rose]

   A cool spring day behind James Madison

Memorial High School. It’s mostly an empty

soccer field. Seagulls wheel over square yards,

goals without nets.

     Shoes and backpack perch on wood worn

to cracked satin. A line of old fence behind the

bleachers. Dandelions crouch with their backs

against the posts, where blades never cut.

     My spine remembers the aluminum grooves

of bleacher seats. The clank and creak of her

stairclimbing to me. Her body is longer than mine

but she still tucks her head beneath my chin.

     Crows scud where seagulls once punctuated the

sky. Wind scuffs the cropped grass, the thick cropped

curls that my fingers are anchoring. This will never

be photographed.

     A cool spring day behind James Madison

Memorial High School. It’s mostly an empty

soccer field. Seagulls wheel over square yards,