High on Fire - Snakes for the Divine (4/5)

01. Snakes for the Divine 08:23 02. Frost Hammer 06:07 03. Bastard Samurai 06:37 04. Ghost Neck 05:01 05. The Path 01:20 06. Fire, Flood and Plague 06:08 07. How Dark We Pray 08:06 08. Holy Flames of the Fire Spitter 04:13

It’s hard to believe that it’s coming up on three years since the last High on Fire album was released. That founder, guitarist and vocalist Matt Pike takes this long to produce an album is always going to instill a note of fear in his fans, most of whom are still traumatised by the saga of “Dopesmoker”. Pike’s old band, stoner metal legends Sleep, attempted to release “Dopesmoker” in 1995, but it didn’t see the light of day until eight years later, by which time the band had long since broken up. Pike has actually been busy with a Sleep reunion in the last year or so, but fear not, High on Fire devotees: “Snakes for the Divine” has actually been released, at long last!

Notably, “Snakes for the Divine” was produced by Greg Fidelman, famed for his peerless work on Slayer’s “World Painted Blood” and Metallica’s “Death Magnetic”, when he rescued both of those legendary bands from sounding like nu-metal ponces. He’s once again gone for the crisp, precise, dry kind of sound he brought to those albums, so it’s a slight departure from the explosive High on Fire sound we all know and love. However, if you take a moment to get used to it, this new style actually works really very well.

Des Kensel’s drums are in more of a supporting role than usual, with Pike’s guitars and vocals - riding high in the mix - providing the main driving force. At times, you can even almost comprehend some of what he’s singing! That’s not to denigrate Kensel’s contribution, of course - he still provides some mind-blowing stick-work, and his double-bass adds still more weight to the album’s already insanely heavy sound. It’s just that more than ever before, this is a High on Fire album driven by Matt Pike - which is by no means a bad thing.

It’s a punishing, relentless behemoth of an album. The uninitiated will be quickly swayed by thrash-attacks like first single ‘Frost Hammer’ and the breakneck ‘Fire, Flood and Plague’. Pike’s guitar work is off the hook throughout, in particular the tight, thundering riffs that make up the core of the music, but there are also some excellent melodic moments to savour - such as the guitars in ‘How Dark We Pray’. Titular opening track ‘Snakes for the Divine’ features a cracking lead part which I believe I noisily proclaimed to be “bitchin’” even during the first listen, but which sadly only occurs at opposing ends of the eight-and-a-half minute song. The rest of it, as with the album, consists fairly solidly of chugging down tuned riffs, vicious drum-work, and Matt Pike’s growly shouting. One thing to note: I mentioned earlier that you can actually make out some of the lyrics, and about the best word I can think of to describe them is “barmy”. A good example might be “Gladiators ring / Sharpening my blade to sting / Son of a bitch your fate I’ll bring”, although to be fair that’s one of the more coherent moments.

‘Bastard Samurai’ (what a name, by the way!) harks back to Pike’s days with Sleep, as the band lift their collective foot from the accelerator at least for a moment. While being a comparatively slow number, it still however manages to feature one of the album’s best guitar solos. You‘d do well to rest up for its duration, though, as you’ll need plenty of energy to headbang along to ‘Ghost Neck’, which reignites the frenetic pace of the album. It sits perfectly among the ‘thrash-attacks’ I was talking about earlier, and to be honest there isn’t a weak point in the album, not a chink in its armour. It’s solid, heavy, brutal, and just generally bloody ace.

‘Holy Flame of the Fire Spitter’ wraps things up in a fashion you should have become used to by this time; if the previous 45 minutes hadn’t convinced you as to how good High on Fire are at their job, it offers a microcosm of the whole. The chorus features what sounds like some kind of demonic army chanting “hoo-hah!”, presumably on the march to wage war on an Elven kingdom somewhere. “Snakes for the Divine” is the perfect soundtrack to such a mythical war; it’s a punishing compilation of crushing riffs and searing hooks, music that makes you want to sharpen your axe (or indeed Frost Hammer) and slaughter Orcs, or something similarly Warcraft-ish. It’s certainly an early contender for heaviest album of the year.

Snakes for the Divine is available to buy or download at Play.com

Genre : Metal, Progressive Metal

Article by Phil Sim