Retrogression

The whole idea of two bass players fills most people with dread. There's the whole "Hey lets play brutal death metal and sound like a downtuned jackhammer" angle, and there's also the "Hey you can play rhythm bass and I'll wank all over it" angle, and both of these variations suck..

There's probably only one genre of metal where two bass players could conceivably work. Doom, with it's obsession with low tunings and general sludge, is perfect for the two bass concept, just waiting for a talented enough band to exploit. This album isn't perfect, but it's a great bass driven doom album with some really monolithic moments.

Generally, what we've got here is a more riff orientated, more primitive Jesu with lots of raw bass riffs. The bass tones are pretty heavy (and really downtuned) but there's still a pretty decent amount of sonic clarity here. The drum machine has a sort of epic 80's sound, indeed some riffs seem to suggest a sizable 80s rock influence on this band, rather strange.

Anyway, onto the songs. Methadrone suffer from something that plagues most bands- while they do manage to get a few classic tunes here, most of it just isn't that memorable. Of Less Emotion is MBV being covered on bass guitars, with all these backwards bass guitars floating through the mix. Impurify is a heavy, martial stomper with some really crushing bass riffs. Ebullient Drift, meanwhile, takes on a more melodic, jesu-like mood with some great fx treated bass guitars and some simple but really nice bass leads. These three songs are great, and the others aren't that bad either, there's just something lacking from these songs.. the hooks just aren't all that memorable, there's nothing really here that will get stuck in your head all day. In particular, the title track and Transient Release are the worst offenders, going through some bland bass riffs for a couple of minutes and then ending.

All is redeemed by the final song- it's strange that a bonus track (that's also a cover) would turn out to be the best song on the album, but it is, no doubt. Having not heard the original I can't compare them, but if the original is half as good as this then it must be quite an excellent song. Basically, the tune goes on one super nihilistic, super crunchy riff over and over again, and with Craig doing a pretty good Michael Gira impersonation it's pretty good. It gets even better when Methadrone bring the second riff- a truly epic, monstrous thing of a riff- that things get really good. It's possibly the heaviest thing ever committed to tape, and the synth programming is subtle and really excellent (in fact, the synths in this album are just great all round.)

Some anyway, what we have here are 3 good songs, 1 great song and 4 other ones that could be promising but don't go anywhere. buy? I'm not quite sure- it's a worthwhile purchase with some excellent bass driven drone doom around, but many parts just aren't that memorable.