The inundation of Sunn0))) influenced drone metal is slowly reaching the point of ad-nausea, with certain stuck-in-the-mud metal reviewers already lashing out at the sub genre for being boring, pretentious and not musical enough ( an ironic stand point for aficionados of all things brutal).
The latest group to fall victim to this backlash is Portland band Trees with their new release ‘Lightsbane’, an album that by its track lengths alone (only two both reaching the over ten minute mark) gives enough evidence that these guys are going to be producing some epic drone-scapes.
Both tracks, ‘Nothing’ and ‘Black’ are as exactly as you’d expect, with slow sludgy openings making way for screeched Mayhem-esque vocals, and so for innovation you would have to side with the naysayer. Yet despite their lack of personal idiosyncrasies the results of ‘Lightsbane’ are still as effective as their championed brethren already praised within the scene.
While less enlightened metal heads may pine for the days of Pantera, Trees and others of their ilk, while clearly jumping on the overcrowded bandwagon are never the less, part of a scene evolving metal from its sometimes puerile roots and into an avant-garde experiment. Taking the brutality and corruption of their black and doom metal forefathers and concentrating it into a genre fast becoming one of the most popular in the metal universe.
