Austin, Texas, quartet The Sword have been chained to the doom metallic tag by critics prior to now, however the shackles had been nicely and actually off for his or her elegant sixth album, Used Future.
Hearken to Used Future on Apple Music and Spotify.
Led by guitarist/vocalist and first songwriter John Cronise, the band’s mission assertion has been to “cut out boundaries since day one.” They’ve by no means hid their love of pioneering metallic forbears equivalent to Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer, but they considerably broadened their palette on 2015’s Excessive Nation: a report which positioned a far better emphasis on keyboards and vocal harmonies, and even discovered The Sword eschewing a few of their trademark downtuned guitars.
Not that their need to stretch blunted The Sword’s edge. Certainly, after the transient, scene-setting “Prelude,” Used Future kicks off purposefully with “Deadly Nightshade.” A menacing ode to arcane poisoning strategies, constructed round looming riffs and Bryan Richie’s fuzzy, Geezer Butler-esque bass motifs, it’s the primary of a beneficiant unfold of sterling old-skool onerous rockers additionally together with “Book Of Thoth” and the dynamic “Twilight Sunrise,” which is redolent of the Dio-helmed Sabbath.
Elsewhere, the assured Texan combo gamely pursue their muse wherever it decides to roam. Lyrically, each the cautionary “Don’t Get Too Comfortable” and the technological overload envisaged by the album’s titular music (“Robots riddled with rust, circuits gathering dust”) replicate a dread-fuelled, dystopian trendy world, but the previous wallows in an irresistibly swampy groove and the album’s title monitor bowls together with the infectious economic system of Free at their most imperious. The band’s native Lone Star state, in the meantime, looms massive over “Sea Of Green,” whereby a plangent, semi-acoustic intro steadily morphs right into a sturdy, ZZ High-esque exercise.
As they did with Excessive Nation, The Sword once more successfully mood Used Future’s greatest tracks with spectacular vocal harmonies, and so they additionally strategically deploy synthesizers on “Twilight Sunrise” and the report’s all-instrumental twin peaks, “The Wild Sky” and the grandiose, “Kashmir”-esque “Brown Mountain.” Cronise and firm’s evocative catalogue has beforehand earned them high-profile syncs in films equivalent to Jennifer’s Physique and Jonas Åkerlund’s Horsemen, and it could be shocking if a minimum of one discerning director doesn’t choose up on Used Future’s “Nocturne”: a slice of movie noir-esque chill harking back to early 80s Tangerine Dream, which underlines the truth that these guys have much more to supply than easy brute drive and metallic KO.
Having risen to challenges starting from sharing levels with metallic titans Metallica and Opeth, via to chopping acoustic variations of their Excessive Nation songs, it appears there’s little The Sword can’t obtain. With Used Future they once more original a report imbued with metal and subtlety which anticipates tomorrow’s panorama, but sounds completely thrilling right this moment.
Used Future could be purchased right here.
