Jacob Augustine explores the Frontier between heaven and hell

CD Reviews

Saviours | Death's Procession

Kemado (2011)

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | November 2, 2011

3.0 Stars

The genre now vilified as "hipster metal" can trace its roots back to the stoner-rock movement of the '90s, when a shameful acquiescence to grunge and pre-nümetal meant that vintage gear, downtuned sludge, and tuneless neanderthalisms were taken as preferable to the pentatonic shred-age and adenoidal shrieks of classic metal. Gladly, those days are over, and it's heartening to see even a band like Saviours — an Oakland foursome who made their name in the last decade with a penchant for dark sonic muck — righteously peppering their sound with the flaming sword of classic metal radness. Storming out of the gate with opener "The Eye Obscene," the band slams the listener 'tween the what-have-yous with a gorgeous twin-axe lead attack that never lets up. The screaming fretwork and storming boogie of album closer "Walk to the Light" waltzes amongst the bric-a-brac of typical stoner-plod riffola and spruces the sound up like audio Febreze sent in a care package from the metal godz above. The result is that Death's Procession still has one foot on the boogie van accelerator — particularly in the tuneless howl of singer Austin Barber — while also transcending stoner metal's self-inflicted limitations with firebird guitar histrionics and pure molten rock and roll fury.

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