Review Summary: The River manages to present their best album with a dramatic shift from doom metal to slowcore
In a move that parallels their peers in 40 Watt Sun, The River has made the jump from doom metal to slowcore on their fourth album. While their transition feels a bit more sudden in comparison, the gentler segments that popped up on 2019’s Vessels Into White Tide showed there was some precedence for it. Not to mention that even their heaviest efforts usually put their melancholic hazes toward more enveloping comfort than outright oppression.
Sure enough, the musicians haven’t sounded as comfortable before as they do here. This is especially apparent with the vocals, which often risked getting overpowered on previous efforts but have a confident presence with guiding lines and reassuring cadences. The guitars also feel more fleshed out with relaxed acoustics, airy cleans, and just enough distortion to shake things up. It’s also cool to see the drums carry the momentum without getting too out of hand and the occasional strings/pianos are splendid atmospheric flourishes.
The songwriting is also on point, consistently conveying an uplifting mood with just enough somber wistfulness. “Exits” and “A Vignette” are the lingering links to their doomy past, driven by held out chords and exploratory vocals that make their ten-minute lengths feel downright breezy. “Fading” and “Hollowful” are also lovely bookending numbers, the former easing in the listener with sparse strums, gradually building percussion, and invoking vocals while the latter is a sweet instrumental denouement with a particularly nice guitar/string spotlight.
It’s certainly splendid to see The River present their best full-length to date with such a major style contrast on A Hollow Full of Hope. A shift to slowcore plays well to their natural strengths as their atmospheric crawls have a little more pathos behind them along with stellar dynamics. It may not channel Patrick Walker levels of heartbreak but this sort of lullaby doom is a beautiful meeting point between Low and Blackwater Holylight.
