Drawers - All Is One (CD)

Review
Femforgacs
7/10
28.03.2012

Ismét francia banda, ismét afféle doom alapú anyag ez is. Most is az orosz Solitude Productions a küldő, s a kiadója a Slow Burn Records. Azt azért lassan megszokhatjuk, hogy ebből a forrásból minőséget kapunk, s újabban a francia csapatok sem hagynak cserben.

Nos, bár a borító minimalista (de tetszetős, igaz támpontot nem nyújt a zenéhez), s információkkal nem halmoz el, a világhálót böngészve azért rá lehet találni a zenekarra. S azt érdemes tudni, hogy 2006-ban alakultak Toulouse-ban, s sludge-os stoner metalt akartak játszani. Az ötös 2008-ban egy This Is Oil c. EP-vel hallatott magáról, majd 2010-ben az énekesi poszton beállt változással kialakult a jelenlegi felállás – Olivier Lolmède – dob, Jérémie Ruiz – basszusgitár, Laurent Bringer és Alex Berenguer – gitár, Nicolas Bastide – ének -, amely elkészítette a bemutatkozó albumot, ami jelen ismertető tárgya.

S, hogy milyen a zene? Ez ilyen groove alapú metal, amiben a lassú középtempók dominálnak. Azon sem lepődtem meg, hogy a kedvenceiket/hatásaikat böngészve szinte rögtön a Down nevével találkoztam. Anselmoék hatása ugyanis tagadhatatlan, igaz elsősorban a zenében érhető tetten. Egyébként biográfiájukban említik még a a Crowbar, a Mastodon, a Baroness nevét, de emellett nekem még Kyle Thomas (most Trouble) és a jobb sorsra érdemes néhai csapata a Floodgate neve is beugrott. Van még itt némi core-ság is, de inkább csak színesítésképp. A Black Queen-ről mondjuk az Ektomorf neve is beugrott, de ezt inkább csak amúgy zárójelben jegyzem meg.

Mit mondjak, a zenei megoldásokat egyedinek ugyan nem nevezném, mégis van a dalokban annyi energia, meg plusz, amivel a másodvonalig simán eljuthatnak. Azonban ahhoz, hogy a felső ligába jussanak és netán ott tartósan meg is vessék a lábukat több kell, mint amit ebben a tucatnyi nótában mutatnak. Mert vannak ugyan jóféle változatos tempóik, még meglepő fordulatok, kiállások is előfordulnak. A vokalizálás is elég széles skálán mozog és mégis hiányzik valami, ami miatt emlékezetessé válnának ezek a dalok.
Még az Electric Seat közelíti meg leginkább ezt, de itt meg a mi Stonedirt-ünk neve is beugrott.

Összességében tehát engem nem győztek meg, annak ellenére sem, hogy az All Is One lemez jól is szól, a banda zenélni is tud, a műfaj kelléktárát magukévá tették, ám az a szikra még nincs meg.

Author: 9000Sanyi

Review
metalstorm
7.5/10
16.03.2012

Unless there is some obscure definition of Drawers of which I am unaware, they have one of the more odd choices for a band name. In addition to the place where you keep your socks and underwear, drawers is also a slang term for underwear.

Origin musings and vocab lesson aside, Drawers are another of those posty-sludge bands coming from the Solitude Productions family of sub-labels. Despite all the colorful song names, the music is generally murky – in a dark, foreboding way. It is also perhaps inconsistent.

So All Is One is murky sludgy. Crushing riffs, pounded drums, and throat-shredding vocals give way to occasional drop-out points for a few moments’ respite before resuming. The rumbling low end of the bass guitar is also given some prominence in the mix and allowed to thunder under the songs and shine through, which is often a difficult feat with lower end, murkier music. The sound really works.

The songs themselves do go through ups and downs, though.

There are times where they hit a good crushing groove, like “Caput Mortuum Ocean”, where they pound out a riff that sounds perhaps like Rising, only with a little less violent conviction. (Or is that violence convictions?)

“Purple Ride” has a bit of a groove when the song hits its stride that makes me smile (perhaps a loose mental correlation with Cathedral’s tracks “Violet Vortex” and “Ride”, which open The Ethereal Mirror), but the remainder of the song fails to live up.

It just seems across the board there are moments where this band occasionally breaks out and shines enough to make metal hippies trip balls (Oh! A sonic double rainbow! What does it mean?!?) – however, such spots are surrounded by long stretches of well executed, decent but not particularly inspired or memorable music.

That is perhaps the most frustrating thing about this release. It is good, with glimpses into some really great stuff, which leaves it a little flat as a whole. There are moments when it makes me want to go into beast mode and start breaking shit… but the momentum is not carried through the entirety of All Is One.

Again, a solid album that will have me expecting very good things from Drawers in the future if they can bring songs up to the standards some of their grooves and riffs attain.

Author: BitterCOld

Revew
Ave Noctum
5/10
17.02.2012

The sheer volume of music out there, divided into a plethora of disparate genres and subgenres, never ceases to amaze me. As lovers of the art form we are all sweeping our musical metal detectors across these heaving, sonic haystacks, searching for the tiny needles in each that prick our attention. The idea, of course, is that we collect enough needles from enough haystacks to satiate our own desire. As we grab our needles to knit our own musical sweater, it’s so easy to forget the vast weight of bands we either fail to pick-up on, or do so and discard.

Drawers are a band who, amidst the trend for those one-word, pluralised bandnames and the resurgent craze for atmospherics and big riffs, are in danger of not getting picked up. It’s clear from, “All Is One”, their debut album about a sailor’s journey to meet his nemesis, that the band have sucked up many different flavours of sludge and stoner metal to produce a hard, smothering sound that’s heavy enough to suffocate.

They start aggressively with both “Capuut Mortem Ocean” and “Black Queen” ripped with the grumbling guitar tone of High On Fire and enamoured with a touch of the dark power of Purified In Blood. “Grey Sailor” piles some of Corrosion Of Conformity’s hardcore feistiness into the mix, dissecting the rhythmic groove into spasming sections. Mostly though, you’ll be hearing plenty of the low-keyed progressive fury of Crowbar and Down, especially in tracks like “Ivory Lighthouse”, “Red Ballet” and “Muddy Smoke”, both in the Anselmo meets Windstein vocal and the heft of dissonance, dissolving the chugs into a singular sound.

Tracks like the short-but-sweet “Blue Keel” and the more expansive “Silver Hand” dig down into cleaner waters adding another brief layer with a more pinched, proggy quality a la Baroness or Isis. “Silver Hand”, in particular, is a winner having retained the driven punch built up from previous tracks to offer a taste of both worlds. Another cracker is the raw power-play, “Golden Adieu”, which simply refuses to cede ground to allow you room to breathe.

With quite a few recognisable influences up front and centre, the task of projecting their own stamp on the project becomes increasingly more important as the tracks roll by. Sadly, by “Purple Ride” and “Electric Seat”, Drawers have succumbed to towing the stoner metal line, mimicking Down almost to the last detail in an attempt to suck up some of their signature, grime-slicked, deep Southern groove, wobbling along the same path, facetiously mimicking their bow-legged gait.

It’s odd that an album whose song-titles feature an array of colours should seem so undeviating, but it’s an album that undoubtedly has an enormous heft to it. It’s for this reason that, despite its lack of variety and tendency to copycat, fans of any of the aforementioned bands, should get a kick out of this. For the rest of you, as it stands, if your detector gets one whiff of these Frenchmen right now, it will simply short-circuit and Drawers will find themselves sliding back down to the bottom of that haystack.

Author: John Skibeat

Review
Heavy Music
4/10
12.02.2012

Музыка этой группы представляет собой стену мощного, плотного звука, где все инструменты звучат одинаково равнозначно, и за счёт этого утопают в звучании друг друга. Вокал также выделяется своей нарочитой агрессивностью и ну никак не вписывается в общую музыкальную картину.

Обычно, видя тэг Sludge/Stoner Metal я ожидаю услышать музыку несколько иную, чем представлена на этом диске. Более лёгкую, более размыто-размазанную, более отрешённо-беззаботную, но с присущей долей злости жанру в целом, конечно же.

Поэтому, такие группы как Mastodon, Crowbar и Baroness не зря добавлены в пресс-релиз в качестве описания ориентиров звучания группы. Если вы поклонник этих формацией- сей релиз вам однозначно придётся по вкусу. В общем же- ничего нового или особенно цепляющего.

Author: Grimmsberg

Review
Metallized
7.8/10

E’ con grande piacere che abbiamo accolto, negli ultimi mesi del 2011, il primo full-leght ufficiale da parte dei transalpini Drawers, giovane sludge metal band recentemente approdata presso la neofita Slow Burn Records.

Tra le proposte della “sotto-label” della più blasonata Solitude Prod, questi ragazzi rappresentano la punta di diamante in un rooster altrimenti poco più che discreto. Provenienti da Tolosa, i Drawers sono fautori di uno sludge metal fortemente debitore nei confronti di Mastodon e Baroness, anche se la dose di personalità messa in gioco dai nostri è di tutto riguardo.
Certo che le due bands sopracitate hanno creato dal nulla un nuovo modo di intendere certe sonorità, attraverso la fusione di core, sludge e metal classico; non è dunque un semplice vivere all’ombra di più importanti nomi quello che fanno i Drawers, bensì hanno il non facile compito di dover reinterpretare dei canoni già ben consolidati, nonostante la relativa giovinezza dei lavori da cui traggono spunto.

Già nell’iniziale Caput Mortuum Ocean l’influenza dei Mastodon si fa sentire chiara ed inequivocabile, specialmente nell’uso di intricati fraseggi melodici intessuti dalle sei corde; tuttavia il brano, nonostante un chiaro sentore di deja-vù, riesce a coinvolgere nella stessa misura in cui il primo ascolto di Leviathan ci fece saltare il cuore in gola. Nelle successive Grey Sailor e Black Queen i nostri cercano di personalizzare maggiormente la propria proposta, confezionando due pezzi molto buoni e con interessanti divagazioni atmosfericheper quanto riguarda il primo, mentre nel secondo riaffiora anche una rivisitazione dei primissimi Baroness.
Ivory Lighthouse lambisce dapprima territori southern/stoner, per poi tuffarsi in serratissime sequenze thrash-core da cardiopalma, dove il versatilissimo Niko Bastide riesce a tirar fuori dalla propria voce il meglio di sé. L’eco dei Down si fa sentire in questo brano, seppur i nostri riescono a smorzare il groove “paludoso” con delle sferraglianti performance da parte della sezione ritmica.
Dopo una breve strumentale intitolata Blue Keel, i Mastodon riemergono prepotentemente in Silver Hand; qui non c’è rielaborazione del modello primario, ma solo del lavoro accademico che per forza di cose risulta inferiore a quello del proprio insegnante.
Dopo una poco ispirata – e a tratti disordinata – Purple Ride, è il turno di Red Ballet: questo brano è dotato di un ottimo riff portante, e mostra il potenziale espressivo di questi francesi, a loro agio nel combinare parti aggressive a sezioni più cadenzate. Un plauso va in particolare al solito buon lavoro svolto da Nico dietro al microfono, ma anche all’articolato drumming di Olivier Lolméde.
Electric Seat mantiene alta la tensione attraverso scelte melodiche efficaci quanto ficcanti, mentre la successiva Golden Adieu vede un deciso rallentamento del tempo battuto dal metronomo, evento che porta per un attimo ad accostare il sound dei francesi a quello dei Crowbar più asfittici degli esordi, ma di certo non con lo stesso livello di pathos.

La complessa Muddy Smoke e la breve Azurite Constellation chiudono in bellezza un lavoro che, nonostante qualche piccolo difetto, risulta davvero godibile all’ascolto, e soprattutto ci consegna una giovane band la quale certamente saprà evolvere al meglio il proprio sound negli anni a venire.

Non sempre bisogna tentare una rivoluzione, delle volte è molto più arduo ed appagante il saper reinventare la tradizione.

Un ottimo inizio, non c’è che dire.

Author: Daniele Salvatelli “Born Too Late”