It is been a hectic half-decade for Prime On Fireplace. After profitable their first Grammy for Electrical Messiah again in 2019, they went their separate techniques to pursue different initiatives. Matt Pike launched a solo album below the moniker Pike vs. The Automaton in 2022, bassist Jeff Matz has been jamming with Mutoid Guy and Des Kensel introduced his departure after greater than two decades at the back of the drumkit. With such a lot happening it will had been simple to fret that Prime On Fireplace would possibly by no means go back. However go back they have got, roaring again to shape with their 9th album Cometh The Hurricane.
When Coady Willis used to be introduced because the everlasting alternative for Des Kensel, expectancies had been top. Except his paintings with Giant Trade and The Homicide Town Devils, Willis sat at the back of the equipment on a few of Melvins maximum memorable albums, together with 2006’s dual-drummer masterpiece (A) Senile Animal. A Melvins/Prime On Fireplace collab would possibly have appeared like the fabricated from a completely stoned thoughts a number of years in the past, however it is a truth now. It is a fit made in sludge steel heaven, made the entire higher via the most obvious chemistry Willis stocks with the opposite two contributors of the band. It is his drumming that kicks this album into top tools and helps to keep it there.
Matt Pike, who not too long ago joined Iggy Pop as a member of the Guys Who Glance Bizarre With A Blouse On Membership, is on best shape. Years of yelling over distorted guitars has allowed his voice to mature from a hoarse grunt right into a Lemmy-style roar and the affect of Mötorhead hangs heavy over Cometh The Hurricane. It is the maximum full of life Prime On Fireplace has ever sounded as we get flashes time and again of the punkier thrash steel aspect of the crowd, particularly on shorter songs like “The Beating” and the awesomely named “Lightning Beard”. However it is nonetheless pushed (or overdriven) via Matt Pike‘s insane guitar tone. At the early observe “Burning Down”, listeners get a reminder that that is the person who helped write Dopesmoker all the ones years in the past.
Cometh The Hurricane avoids the pitfalls that lots of Prime On Fireplace‘s imitators have stumbled into, principally letting the track loosen up right into a gradual movement dirge. The Heart-Jap impressed interlude “Karanlık Yol” would not be misplaced at the Dune soundtrack and heavier subject material like “Lambsbread” and “Tricky Man” makes the band sound like they’re chomping on the bit to head sooner, no longer decelerate. Even the ten-minute nearer “Darker Fleece”, which leans farther into Prime On Fireplace‘s older subject material than anything on Cometh The Hurricane, helps to keep the momentum going with drum fills, crashing cymbals and a fully ripping guitar solo.
That is the band’s fourth team-up with steel superproducer and Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou. Ballou’s manufacturing has tended to thieve a few of his bands’ thunder on earlier efforts, burying new concepts below his signature squall of sound. However Prime On Fireplace had been doing this too lengthy to be derailed. Ballou takes a again seat in this one, placing Matt Pike‘s tone heart degree and permitting the rumble of the bass and drums to reinforce fairly than overpower. It is a strictly old-school mindset at odds with Ballou‘s standard output of this subgenre.
In reality, Cometh The Hurricane sounds extra like a stoner steel album within the vein of early Mastodon, Weedeater or Down than anything else from this decade. It is a just right have compatibility because it sidesteps one of the vital Black Sabbath worship that has outlined stoner rock lately. Matt Pike‘s voice could not be farther from Ozzy or Dio and he is were given extra concepts in his head than simply copying his unique idols (as opposed to Mötorhead after all.) Issues are nonetheless firmly rooted within the 20th century, however it isn’t outdated slightly but.
Cometh The Hurricane is much more likely to have listeners throwing horns with a hearty “Hell Yeah!” then it’s to lend a hand them loosen up at the sofa with a bong. The brand new drummer suits like a glove and improves all of the band. If this album is an indication of items to return, then Prime On Fireplace don’t seem to be getting previous. They have simply transform legends.
