We as people seem to have been on the road to doom for a long time, and if we’re being totally honest, there seems very little hope we can change that. It’s broken-record shit at this point about large swaths of the world’s population who are in total denial because they’ve been misled by leaders who value money over the future, because they’ll likely be dead by the time we all burn.
Philly sludge doom crushers Quiet Man, who are comprised of anything but quiet people, watch humankind spiraling out into oblivion on their hulking debut record “The Starving Lesson.” Here, the band (formerly known as God Root)—guitarist/vocalist Joe Hughes, guitarist Keith Riecke, guitarist/sample wizard Jack Sterling, bassist/vocalist Ross Bradley, drummer Jason Jenigen—refuses to turn an eye away from the existential carnage, going full bore inro the chaos, the feeling that everything is coming apart at the seams. They go into terrifying corners thinking of the corrosion of our world, the way many folks treat marginalized people, and our own mental and physical well-being in the face of so much pain and misery. Yet in the end, even after all this erosion, there are slight glimmers of positivity, tiny as they may be, that suggest we can maintain our identities.
“Pressure to Burrow” doesn’t exactly ease you into the record as the clean eeriness and cloudiness push into a burly shift, reeling with the howl of, “I can’t watch you die, leaning with intent to fall, fuck thoughts and prayers, I need no more dead friends.” The playing later takes on a dusty feel, slipping into gazey pressure, shrieks raining down as the twists and turns aim to disorient. A huge gust blows you back as the guitars destroy, the doominess clogs veins, and the power pummels, with the warning, “Run!” “At Operating Temp” is a strange interlude with sounds beeping, weird samples warping your brain, psychotic jolts electrifying limbs as everything heads into 12:56-long “From Tomorrow’s Dead Hiss” that feels like it dawns in an industrial fog. The playing slowly mauls, sludgy hell achieved, guitars ringing out and looking to do damage to your psyche. Drums thrust as speaking makes your blood chill, and then crazed howls turn things into properly disjointed territory, melting into a fog, slowly wafting like a ghost. Sounds settle and land on the ground, making your nerve endings quiver and sizzle.
“Set to Boil Is the New Standard” brings thick moodiness, and then the retching begins, making your body feel like it’s been through the ringer. There are times where the power sits in the mist, others where the combustion almost is too much, and wails of, “Device of paper and thought and flesh, a soul is a coin is a brick is a knife is a shovel is a gun is a ditch is a house is a debt is an end,” where you feel the downward spiral. Sounds swarm as the spirit grows delirious, feedback wails, and their teeth chew into “The Post Abandoned” that has solemn guitars and stitched static. The sounds coat your brain while fragments of dreams reach out, pulling you into the title track that trudges and pounds away. Cleaner singing soothes before the howls pound away, battering as keys immerse, and guitars bend. The playing tingles and eventually sinks into a desert dusk, making it seem like calm has arrived, but it’s not the case. Following this comes the most volatile section of the record, as the gaze releases, the intensity spikes, and the anger pours like a raging river of blood. “All gone, all done, abstain from the violence forever more,” is screamed as the band lays waste, crushing with devastation before a final call of, “Starve them!” plunges knives into chests. Closer “All Along, We Were Beautiful Radiant Things,” inspired by Emma Goldman’s autobiography Living My Life, is an instrumental piece where guitars tease and drone, sounds ache, and each angle tricks your thinking. Things go from frosty to spacey to strangely warm, and then the sky ignites. Cavernous clouds swallow the emerging hell, finally revealing a pinpoint of light over unsettling horizons.
It’s natural to feel both anxiety attack levels of pressure and eventually the slightest hint of hope on “The Starving Lesson,” and along the way you’ll be battered physically and mentally. Quiet Man certainly achieve a certain vibe here that goes beyond the bludgeoning, letting your mind expand and your empathy spike as we all face tumult and deal with the pain we’ve been dealt a little too generously. This mighty statement is a world beater, an album that isn’t just another doom collection, but one that’ll push you mind and body to consider our place and how to improve everyone’s around ours.
For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/Quietmanband/
To buy the album, go here: https://riffmerchant.bandcamp.com/album/the-starving-lesson
Or here: https://astralands.bandcamp.com/album/the-starving-lesson
For more on the label, go here: https://riffmerchant.bandcamp.com/
And here: https://www.facebook.com/astralands/
Meat Mead Metal 