Proving vocals, bass & drums can wipe its cock on the curtains of convention after fucking the mistress of bands with guitar: this is awesome. Big Business are the groove based daddies.
A current popular sound in metal is the ‘stoner’ sound. Bands like Queens of the Stone-Age and try-hards Mastodon have somewhat penetrated mainstream consciousness, but I think stoner bands are, by and large, pretty shite. That said, there are exceptions for every unfair generalisation, and this is one such exception: the second album by the who helped make the Melvins (A) Senile Animal one of the best albums of 2006, if not thee best.
Kicking off in fine style with ‘Just As The Day Was Dawning’, the core elements of Here Come the Waterworks are familiar thanks to the aforementioned Melvins albums – hugely distorted bass, driving drums and a vocal sound heavy as it is melodic (there is an odd moment in ‘Ground for Divorce’ where the melody almost ventures into Beatles territory). And, okay, there is the occasional guitar sound but it never features in the fore of a song.
The album just keeps on going for seven tracks – it’s hard to turn off. There’s a hypnotic quality to this album without the usual stoner tendency of over-repetition of a riff and no song outstays its welcome, despite just eight tracks lasting 40 minutes.
The quality of everything on this is blistering: the musicianship (especially the drums), the songs, the riffs, the vocals, the production. The drums punctuating everything, driving every riff, complimenting everything with style. It all just sounds massive and so fucking heavy.
One song melts into another but each one complements the last and the next. You get lost in the album and it’s only when Grounds for Divorce’s odd pre-chorus wakes you up to the fact you’ve been dragged through 4 songs of awesomeness.
Then, ‘Another Forth of July… Ruined’ kicks off with the drums and the sludge which is the bass sound finally draws a bleedingly obvious line to doom metal, although everything on this album is much more interesting than any Doom album I’ve heard.
The last song, “Another Beautiful Day In the Pacific Northwest” see’s the bass at it’s most distorted – like he’s not even plucking the string, just gliding his finger to the note. It feels more of an ambient number, like the end of a disaster film where the sun comes up and civilisation is in ruins but a few people are left to rebuild it. Light relief compared to the destruction and mayhem gone before it, and it’s the most boring part of the film. Bring back the mayhem.
The sound created seems so naturally massive and the riffs so groove laden that it puts to shame most bands that even try to attempt this style. This album proves why the Melvins wanted to swallow up Big Business. It. Is. So. Fucking. Big.
Tuesday, 1 May 2007
Big Business - Here Come The Waterworks
HRH666-121
Hydra Head Records
LPCD Review
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