There are only so many ways a rock band can tell you things are crap. They can scream at the listener, then lower the guitar tuning until the neighbors’ furniture begins to hum with their own existential rage, write a chorus explicitly about the nature of despair and scream it at an increased volume. Or, if you’re Blade Of Thorns, do all of the above, while simultaneously making it sound like being pulled underwater and drowned with no hope of rescue.
On the latest release by London-based industrial-rock band Blade Of Thorns “Deep Waters” is precisely as unsubtle a statement of intended mood and thematics as the title promises, that a person is feeling overcome by their own thoughts rather than presenting these difficulties as something that can be overcome through an inspiring quote over a sunset backdrop, The result is heavy, dramatic and surprisingly earnest, with no pretense of making things better.
The track steadily builds an atmosphere and introduces the guitars before they begin their contracted obligations; namely to become utterly enormous. The drums are a consistent pounding force and the thick baseline is meant to represent what constantly presses onward in the ears. Guitars do the same and add further abrasion to the overall work.
This is not to overlook the guitar solos, It seems that the lead guitar isn’t just there to decorate the song: the melodies bring with them an additional layer of the song’s emotional texture. Though somewhat short, the solos are melodic and lamenting rather than triumphant; and it brings the listener above the oppressive weight of the rest of the track only to give them a brief respite before bringing them back under. And “Deep Waters” doesn’t have any pretense of permanent escapism anyway.
What that message has to sound like here is exactly this song. There’s no performative melodrama in the darkness of “Deep Waters”: no shadow-monsters lurking in the corners. There’s just the familiar darkness and that familiar ringing sound in a person’s head; once that internal noise rises and drowns out the noise that it originally mimicked, the arrangement begins to draw in on itself again and become slightly less melodic, though still rhythmically heavy.
“Deep Waters” has the advantage of not forcing us to think the music only can be violent, only can be the emotional; we have our guitar riffs that are their own cry and our guitar solo that may well be what one feels they need to say but cannot for any reason say, and our trek down into that deep water only to find the surface at the end of it.
Blade Of Thorns doesn’t make the trip there a welcoming affair; they just make the long drop worthwhile.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
