The Progerians - Crush the Wise Men Who Refuse to Submit (2019)
The last time we covered the four-piece
group of The Progerians was back in 2013 (geez, time flies), on their split with fellow Belgians OMSQ. Two years after that, they released
their first full album, and now, they've returned with their
sophomore LP, bearing four vinyl sides' worth of music.
Leading with the curiously-titled
“Frankie Leads to Death” (on his way to Hollywood?), the album
promptly establishes an evocative atmosphere with thick, rolling bass
waves, shifting slowly from one tone pitch to another as a building
intrusion of guitar grind hints at the violence in store. Dramatic
vocals and synth squealing arrive to further disrupt the drone,
before the plowing in of a steady beat shared by drums, guitar, and
bass overturns things almost entirely, and the mood shifts to one of
stern doom metal. The main riff swings wide and heavy, and the
repetitions are given tasty changing inflections of character each
go-round, working well to pull listeners in to the flow and make them
eager to hear what else will come.
And, with “Destitute”, the album's
second track, that hooky momentum picks up into faster, almost
thrashy action, chugging out the riffs while the drummer fire off his
beats. Hell, there's even some shredding unleashed towards the end,
which, when put up against the tone of “Frankie”, serves as a
pretty clear indicator to first-time listeners that the band will keep things moving into
different territories throughout the album. “Hold Your Cross”
shifts the tempo back down, but pulls another surprise with the
vocals by flipping over to frenetic French retorts, a structure
eventually mimicked by the instruments, and “Oceania” draws in
more electronic textures for a creeping sense of wrongness.
With the first song of the second disk,
“Crush the Wise Men”, The Progerians provide what could be argued
as the most traditionally-styled of the album's songs, though it
still brandishes plenty of uncommon edge. While the computer
allusions of “Hello World”'s title don't manifest in further
electronic nuttiness, there is plenty of guitar torture, and a splash
of rawness evocative of sludge or crust punk, so you certainly can't
fault them for predictability. Side C's last song, “Graven”,
moves back to the sober-faced strain of doom teased by “Frankie”,
deploying yet another sturdy riff through twists of percussion and
vocal cadences.
On the last side, “Netjeret” brings
more of the sludge/punk energy to the fore, which translates nicely
into the worn-out come-down of album finisher “Your Manifest”.
Across the album's run, the band does a fantastic job of pulling
together the disparate styles and moods with a connective thread of
persistent energy and attitude. There's ample depth to each song,
plenty of details to absorb on revisits of the album, and impressive
balance between the band-members. From start to finish, it's an
engaging and very respectable piece of work, and fans both new and
old will certainly find much to appreciate.
~ Gabriel
For Fans Of; Asilo, Bell
Witch, Body Void, Kalamata, Ksyatriya
~
