Bison B.C. - Dark Ages (4.5/5)

01. Stressed Elephant 08:18 02. Fear Cave 06:46 03. Melody, This Is For You 08:37 04. Two-Day Booze 05:07 05. Die of Devotion 05:07 06. Take The Next Exit 05:18 07. Wendigo Pt. 3 (Let Him Burn) 7:34

Bison B.C. are a metal band hailing from British Columbia, Canada. In fact, the B.C. in their name actually stands for British Columbia, added by Metal Blade records in case they get confused with other bands called Bison. It’s a fitting sort of suffix, however; Bison make a noise that’s kind of primeval, cave-man music. In a good way; music to club your enemies to. Well, sort of, anyway…as listening to ‘Dark Ages’, the band’s third album, confirms, putting a neat tag on Bison B.C. is a difficult although fascinating task.

Honestly, it’s bloody hard to pin Bison down; they’re a band that defy pigeonholing. It’s almost tempting to refer to them as being a progressive band; frankly, that’s a tag that’s going to be hard to avoid when you consider that the album features just seven songs, many of which span seven or eight minutes, and which feature a range of instruments including keyboards, piano, and even what sounds like a French horn in the intro to opener “Stressed Elephant”. However, at the same time, there’s something fundamentally unpretentious about Bison’s music - despite the length of the songs and the range of instrumentation, their approach is relatively honest and simple, just balls-to-the-wall, uncompromisingly heavy music.

“Stressed Elephant” may open with a French horn part providing a melody, but it’s a beast composed almost entirely of enormous riffs, and it really seems to live up to its name - it actively rampages. Throughout, the album gives the impression of just being really, really heavy - there are massive, intensely dense riffs abounding, with some frankly vicious drumming to boot - but on closer inspection Bison are capable of something that escapes a lot of their peers in the “heavier than a collapsing star” market. Something called subtlety.

There’s a bluesy edge, a sort of groove to Bison’s music, bringing more to mind than the standard Black Sabbath inspired style present in your standard extremely heavy music. The sort of dark, heavy blues style you hear from people like Down or even more stoner or doom-leaning bands like High on Fire. Despite the apparent simplicity of the musical approach here, the fine blend of multiple styles which makes the band’s music quite hard to pin down is something that requires real intelligence to craft. To attempt to unpack the rather dense picture I’ve been painting here, ‘Dark Ages’ is, musically, the most intelligently and subtly crafted punch in the face you’re ever likely to receive.

“Fear Cave” is a rather repetitive number, taxing the fast/slow dynamic rather than the quiet/loud, and perhaps the most interesting part of the song is the manner in which it ends, steadily degrading the sound quality until it descends into undecipherable distorted chaos.

On to “Melody, This Is For You” - if it really is directed at the musical concept of melody, then the “this” that the song delivers is a sound beating. It may open with an acoustic guitar, but it’s still a raging behemoth of a song, uncompromisingly heavy and brutal. Probably one of the standout tracks of the album, along with “Two Day Booze”, which sees Bison put the pedal firmly to the metal and get their wild noodling guitar lead on. “Die of Devotion”, meanwhile, displays a slightly more sympathetic approach to melody, but remains uncompromisingly fast, with a very heavy groove.

“Wengido Pt. 3 (Let Him Burn)” closes out the album and might just be the strongest track present. That ability to write subtlety into fiercely aggressive songs is showcased with aplomb, as the track opens with an acoustic guitar/piano riff which is quickly dwarfed by a behemoth of a riff and James Farwell‘s roared vocals. Even at their heaviest and most chaotic, you can always sense a sort of intense, precise intent behind Bison’s music…they’re the thinking caveman’s band. You can bang your head damn near off to it, but for all of its intense simplicity there beats within this music a heart of intelligence.

That’s the last word on this one from me, anyway. Bison can draw you in with their epic riffs and heavy grooves, but the weird dense subtlety and intelligence about their music is what’s going to keep people listening for much longer; this is an album that grows on you the more you listen to it. Despite all of the things that might make this album less accessible - the song length, slightly odd range of instruments, etc - Bison are a band I can see going far. And in ‘Dark Ages’, they’ve produced a left-field pick for one of the albums of the year.

Dark Ages is available to buy or download at Play.com

Genre : Progressive Metal

Article by Phil Sim