Review Summary: Sometimes less is more
The moniker
Lord Dying was not chosen by the band simply because it fits neatly into the death-obsessed culture of metal, or at least if it was, they intend more than most to follow their brand through with an extensive thematic application. All of the band’s albums are about death, dying, succumbing, perishing, departing, disintegrating, and transcending - incorporating their name quite reliably into their lyrical themes. Starting their career as a run-of-the-mill deathy sludge metal band,
Lord Dying’s first two albums more so represent the cruder depictions of death - illustrating images of skeletons, ghouls, and other decaying monstrosities.
I, like many others, became a fan of theirs following the release of their third full-length album
Mysterium Tremendum, alluding to the philosopher and proto-psychologist Rudolf Otto whose work is known for describing the phenomenology of death as a transcendent and unfathomable experience. This represents a shift in
Lord Dying’s work to exemplify the more intellectual and “high-brow” depictions of death. Additional changes in the band’s musical style parallel this development as this is where they began incorporating classic progressive and heavy metal into their sound, resulting in a cult classic in the underground metal community.
They follow this stylistic progression, more or less, here with
Clandestine Transcendence, however, this album is noticeably more eclectic with a “kitchen sink” kind of approach. If the listener takes the time to attend to the details, they’ll notice dissonant metal influences (“I Am Nothing, I am Everything”), funky sections (“Dancing on the Emptiness”), and psychedelic parts with theremin-like, flanging synth effects (“Final Push Into the Sun”). These additions sit uncomfortably in a crowd combined with the previous mix of progressive sludge metal, hard rock, and death metal that the band had previously fostered. This genre-wise variety has been widely celebrated among the reviews I’ve read so far, and as uncharacteristic as it is for me to say: I’m not sure this quite worked out in their favor.
To make a warranted comparison to
Mastodon: If
Lord Dying’s debut album is their
Lifesblood, and
Mysterium Tremendum is their
Crack the Skye,
Clandestine Transcendence would be like a disheveled version of
Blood Mountain or even like
Baroness’s Blue Album. Essentially, when compared to its predecessor,
Clandestine Transcendence garners diversity while suffering major losses in cohesion and fluidity. This has a lot of tracks, thrown about haphazardly; it is seldom a good sign if you can shuffle the song positions on the album and there is no natural flow that is disrupted in the album’s chronological experience.
In my view, one of the shining strengths of progressive rock and metal, as genres, comes from their given ability to experiment with song structures in a paradigm of limitless freedom, allowing them to deliver experiences of temporal complexity beyond that of normal music. However, this is best done when the songs are continuous, rather than discrete or choppy, and that is something that this album fails to deliver, especially when it sits next to
Lord Dying’s previous work.
There are plenty of great tracks on this album, but for one reason or another, they get lost in the sauce. I think there are many catalysts to blame here for this issue, however perhaps the most pressing concerns are the poor mix and production which deliver the great musicianship in a blur. With the guitar and bass reverb so loud and constant, the vocals and lead guitar riffs get buried a bit. Compare the clarity of the guitar solo at 0:51 in “A Bond Broken by Death” to the solo at 5:33 in “Severed Forever” from their previous work and the difference in quality is unmistakable.
Perhaps, this muddier approach was intentional. But in that case, having bogged down
Clandestine Transcendence with extra repetitive verses and repeating noisy riffs makes this a less enjoyable listen, at least for me, someone who has never gone deep into the non-prog stoner metal rabbit hole. It may well be the case that these nitpicks are speaking for my ears only and these criticisms are of qualities par for the course for others. As it stands, this album came with a bit of a disappointment to me.
