Search - High on Fire :: Blessed Black Wings

The sound and the fury

Wheelchair Assassin | The Great Concavity | 02/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Coming off the back-to-back triumphs of The Art of Self-Defense and Surrounded by Thieves, High on Fire have returned with a landmark of heavy music, one that may end up going down as their definitive work. On Blessed Black Wings, High On Fire remain as ruthlessly heavy and unapologetically gloomy as ever, but their sound has somehow managed to become even bigger and better than before. This power trio (emphasis on the word "power") plays rampaging, roiling metal at its most primal and visceral, drawing influence from all the right places: Black Sabbath, Motorhead, and of course frontman Matt Pike's old band Sleep. For this, their third album, High On Fire have teamed with indie uber-producer Steve Albini, and the move has paid off and then some, resulting in a sound that's finally full enough to do justice to the band's epic, apocalyptic vision.



Behind the hell-hound vocals of Matt Pike, the band once again delivers a full-scale aural assault that's as vast as it is ferocious. Pike's strangulated guitar solos are pure freakin' insanity, Des Kensel's drum fills very neatly replicate the feeling of being hit upside the head, and Joe Preston's bass riffs are downright atomic. More importantly though, Blessed Black Wings sees a further refinement of High On Fire's already formidable songwriting abilities. While Pike & Co. most certainly haven't abandoned the pummeling sonic stomp that characterized their previous two albums, Blessed Black Wings is probably their least monolithic, most fully-developed effort to date. Rampaging tracks like the opening Devilution and Cometh Down Messiah see the band veering closer to thrash-metal territory than ever before, with Pike cranking out distorted speed riffs and sounding eerily similar to Lemmy Kilmister on vocals. The title track segues from an ominous, martial-sounding intro into a few moments of relative quiet, then launches into a groove heavy enough to level a mid-sized city. Similarly, To Cross the Bridge starts with a tense, acoustic-tinged passage before descending into a hellish vortex of tortured shouts and twisted guitar work. Its title notwithstanding, the closing instrumental Sons of Thunder is almost ambient (for these guys anyway), driven mainly by the hypnotic, repetitive thump of the rhythm section.



With this CD you also get a DVD feauring live renditions of five songs: Devilution, Speedwolf, Cometh Down Hessian, Brother in the Wind, and Nemesis. While the sound quality isn't that great, it is nice to see these guys replicating the intense fury of their studio sound in a live setting. If (like me) you can't see them live for whatever reason, this DVD treatment is probably the next best thing. In any case, Blessed Black Wings is the finest thing High On Fire have released so far, and all their albums are classics. And if you like these guys, be sure to pick up Sleep's Dopesmoker as well.

"

Metal the way it was always meant to be played.

Rat Dawg | PA | 02/02/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Take Motorhead, "Reign in Blood" era Slayer, early Black Sabbath, and Sleep. Imagine all of them having sex, and try to conceive of what their offspring would sound like. High on Fire's "Blessed Black Wings" is what you should come up with as an answer.



This is Metal the way it was always meant to be played. Loud, heavy, and pissed off. You will find no modern clichés, stereotypes, or even influences... because these guys know that most of the stuff passing as "Metal" these days is simply false. High on Fire function as a reminder to all who have lost the faith that Metal can still be as good as it was back in its glory days.



Since their previous album "Surrounded by Thieves", High on Fire have progressed slightly and they've taken a more metal-less stoner approach. They're heavier, they're louder, and I'd say they're just simply better than ever before. They've certainly outdone themselves again, but I don't think they've reached their peak quite yet.



Some noteable tracks are Cometh Down Hessian, Blessed Black Wings, To Cross the Bridge, and Devilution.



Pick this one up immediately.



"

Indie goes the metal

Zachary A. Hanson | Tallahassee, FL United States | 02/17/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"People compare High on Fire to Mastodon, Slayer, and Motorhead, all apt comparisons. None of these bands have much of anything on the metal fury that High on Fire releases. Yet High on Fire have more indie production values along with other values from those in that realm, certainly making their albums less slick than Mastodon's _Leviathan_ and anything by Slayer after _Reign in Blood_. I would also compare High on Fire to more "underground" bands like Big Black, Bad Brains, and, obviously, the Melvins. Like Big Black--whose leader, Steve Albini, produces and masters this album--excessive studio volume contributes heavily to the vibe of the recording. This is true to such an extent that the amp repair guy gets listed right under the names of the band members and Albini with the same size font; I'm sure he got a lot of work in on this unbelievably loud recording session.



Like Bad Brains's Dr. Know, Matt Pike uses all sorts of chromatic riffs and soloes, eschewing conventional modes to a great extent. Unlike lesser guitarists who use all the notes on the fretboard because they don't know the right ones to hit, Matt Pike strategically adds the appropriately tortured tone by going outside of conventional scales. Also like Dr. Know, his soloes are very dynamic, largely staying away from metal cliches.



Of course, the big indie band to compare High on Fire to is the Melvins, not least because the Melvins's Joe Preston holds down the bottom end for High on Fire. Every song on this album is slathered thick with a grimy layer of sludge, giving the listener the effect of being lost in a sea of it early on in the album. "Devilution" starts you off in the lyrical realm of many other Satan-obsessed metal singers of the past, but with the added dimension that this band is playing well past the volume level that any band ever should and also that it sounds live in the studio, giving an even more frantic feel and rough edge to this already dark music.



Each song tends to stay in the same satanic lyrical pocket, tho' Matt Pike's disconnected poetry is a little more evocative than your typical doom metal dude. What varies is the music. Each song is a bona fide extreme metal slab of sound in its own right. The only part of the formula that stays the same is the loudness, rawness, and sludginess. Otherwise, each song has a different structure, moving from tempo to tempo, time signature to time signature, and chord configuration to chord configuration. As far as music that makes you want to commit antisocial acts goes, it doesn't get much better than this outside of the influences I mention above."