Review Summary: Stifling. Suffocating.
Let me preface this by saying this will not be the most level-headed review I've done. I'll do my best, but god damn.
Sludge is one of two of what I would call my "pet" genres in metal (the other being brutal/slam). It's one of those styles where an album that hits it right can make me just melt into it and all my objectivity goes flying out the window. Whether it's the more rollicking Crowbar variety, going into post territory like Neurosis, or the uber-slow that Grief provides, sludge has a heaviness that doesn't really exist elsewhere in metal. The combination of tortured vocals with bottom-heavy instrumentation and slow as molasses composition leaves a lead blanket weight on the chest that's right my alley. When I saw Nervewrecker had a 4-track album that passes the half hour mark and genre tags "doom" and "sludge," I buckled up for what would, I hoped, be my kinda ride.
Boy howdy.
The hardest part about sludge metal, especially taken as slowly as Nervewrecker does, is that it's kinda like a Stephen Wright joke. It's not like tech death or prog where notes are flying so quickly and the songs change direction so often that if any individual part falls flat there's always another in the barrel to make up for it. With an album like Murmur, every single note plucked on a guitar or lyric must be absolutely spot-on, because it's hanging around for a solid few seconds before anything else. It's a genre that pulls the listener into a trance, repeating glacial riffs over and over again with minor changes to give just enough variety that it becomes hypnotic rather than boring.
To that end, every song on Murmur is built around incredibly simple melodies. A kid with only a few weeks of guitar lessons under his belt could play along with this, but therein lies the rub. An elementary school student can learn to play the Moonlight Sonata (the first movement, at least), but it takes a master not only to compose it, but to play it effectively. As George Carlin once said about the blues, it's not enough to know what notes to play, you gotta know why they need to be played. These are blues-inspired riffs, too, in the Bongripper mold though Nervewrecker isn't what anyone would call a "stoner" band.
"Glaciation", the album opener, is perfectly named and sets the stage. This is bottom-heavy sludge, with a bass guitar that doesn't do anything but march along with the root notes and a drum kit doing the exact same, but you know what? That's why it works. The production is thick, heavy, and immense, focusing more on the bass and kick drum than the guitar and cymbals. Each note lands like a boulder on the chest, and like Giles Corey, I sit struggling to breathe but telling them to pile on more weight. So Nervewrecker does. For the entire thirty-two minute runtime, Murmur crashes down like a sledgehammer, with only slight variations in tempo. All the while, some of the most wracked, filthy vocals I've heard in a long time wail out, supplementing the riffs by being somewhat distant in the mix rather than taking center stage. I can't understand a damn word, but even without reading the lyrics, it's pretty obvious what's being sung about.
My biggest indicator of a stellar album is my relationship with the volume knob. A good album has me setting the volume at a pretty loud level and jamming out. A great album makes me turn it up to where it's just on the verge of too loud. A stellar album is one where I keep turning it up throughout the entire listening session, because every time my ears "adjust" to the current level, I want more. That's where Murmur lies. I kept turning it up louder and louder, wanting to just sink into the giant mudslide of sound coming at me.
Putting a number on this one was tricky, because on one hand, it's a sludge/doom album that does precisely jack and *** differently. However, it does it so well that I went through the album four times in a row before I realized how much time had passed. It's the kind of album that I'll put on repeat for weeks until I get tired of it, then take just enough time away that I can return to it fresh. At the same time, it does have all those trappings that people who are less enthused about metal that plods and struggles to drag its millstone likely will not be so enamoured with. So... a 4.5 it is.
I say this genuinely. If you have any interest at all in how "heavy" can happen at a slower tempo, listen to this. It is a stunning achievement.
