4 out of 5

Label: Prosthetic Records

Produced by: Chris Common

The thing that has never stopped amazing me with music: how much fantastic stuff is out there, that certainly tons of others have heard of… just not you, not yet. It’s that huge gap between “mainstream” indie – let’s completely set aside the mainstream mainstream – and the truly underground, only-released-thirty-copies-of-one-single local act. Within that realm, groups work with producers you know, sign to legit labels, maybe feature a member who later played with so-and-so, release an album or a handful of them and then largely go unnoticed. Of course, if you know, you know, and the point is – you don’t know, not yet. And once you hear whatever it is, which blows your mind, there’s the dawning realization of how random this game can be: that if more people had made this same discovery, perhaps this mystical album or band would’ve broken out of this vast prison of relative unknowns.

Anyway: Book of Black Earth’s Horoskopus is death metal glory, and yeah, this is one of those albums prattled on about above.

While my education in this realm of blast beats and growled lyrics about the apocalypse is still growing, from my sample of the bigger touchpoints, and happenstance awareness of groups that grab the temporary limelight, BoBE encompasses quite a bit, trampling it all with precision and intensity and never trying to be too cute or showy about it, blending elements of thrash and grind with a surprisingly evolved (for 2005, but even now) “post-metal” sense of composition – long, sprawling tracks that bridge fast and slow sections which flesh out a song’s tonal range, but remain identifiable to that song (as in, not just random breakdowns) – and then, most importantly, keep it all rooted in tried and tested death metal tenets. That careful balance is what called out to me here, as tons and tons of bands can sound menacing, and rock hard, but at the precise moment where most peers would lift the curtain slightly, with countering screams or a more atmospheric bridge, BoBE instead tends to double down – go harder, go faster – delaying the moment the intensity breaks a bit or bridges such that when you get there, it’s not clear what to expect. So it’s like extremely traditional and then experimental (within reason) at the same time.

But let’s call out something specific: drummer Joe Axler. Axler absolutely kills it throughout Horoskopus, and I’ll admit that their skill at jumping from punky thrash to hardcore pummel on a dime is initially what he me sitting up and paying attention.

And we have producer Chris Common to thank for all of the above as well, though with some caveats. Common, to my ears, excels at mixing and recording grind as he has a way of capturing the precision while leaving the sound relatively organic and loose – a lot of this scene ends up sounding very digital – and he gives the sound weight but with clarity: you get all the double-bass drum and grinding guitars, and can still clearly hear the vocals.

However, because Hororskopus adds a couple extra layers of interplay, with keys and bass and multiple guitars, some of that stuff does get lost in Chris’ mix (primarily the keys), leading to some tracks hitting shy of the epic status they might otherwise have achieved.

The album, overall, still is epic, mind you. And really does deserve a spot in the hallowed halls of all-time metal albums.