This is the third album from Canadian doom/sludge metal band Heron.
Featuring 37 minutes of material, Heron have produced a very tasty underground gem on Empires of Ash. Instantly engaging, despite its caustic nature, this is the sort of album that doom and sludge aficionados should hungrily devour.
Abrasive sludge heaviness is smashed together with apocalyptic doom to produce music that’s harsh and gloomy, yet still has time for moments of texture. The latter comes from some post-metal and post-rock influences that coat the album with introspective melancholy. Taken together this makes for a compelling experience of textured heaviness.
The songs offer a variety of different sounds to become absorbed by. Some parts of the album are slow and heavy, wielding a crushing intensity born from glacial inevitability. Other parts are quiet and peaceful, evoking a vastness of space that you can lose yourself in. Still others build and flow with post-metal grace, forming soundscapes of expressive apocalyptic darkness. Empires of Ash has clearly had a lot of thought and energy put into it, and the result is an album of sludgy doom that is as emotive and atmospheric as it is raw and violent.
Empires of Ash is an accomplished slab of heaviness, one with a surprising amount of detail and feeling in its DNA. It’s the sort of charismatic doom sludge monster that seems less common these days, but one which Heron excel at playing.
Fans of bands like Neurosis, Primitive Man, Body Void, Iron Monkey, Come to Grief, Indian, and Thou need to pay attention to this.
Very highly recommended.