Consuming the Tangible

Identity can be everything for a band. Some bands play great, but sound like every other band in that category. I love Undeath for example, but if you were to put them in a playlist with five other bands playing the same thing, I don’t know that I could easily tell the difference. Then there are bands like Cannibal Corpse, sitting firmly in the same genre but immediately identifiable – no one really sounds like Cannibal, you know? But then you have an entity like Five The Hierophant, a group out of the UK who don’t really sound like anyone else. Sitting in the pocket of instrumental, avant-garde post, well…everything they’re the sound of an undulating apocalypse, and third full-length Apeiron (Greek for unlimited or boundless) has seeped into me at a cellular level, pressing my consciousness into the mossy earth as a dark storm gathers in the distant mountains. Sometimes hokey imagery is all you have when that sax blows its mournful wail…

Yeah, that’s right: another album with saxophone as the lead instrument…in the wrong hands it annoys me in much the same way fretless bass does in extreme metal, overused as a showoff gimmick more than a fully integrated part of the musical ensemble. That is not the case here. In the hands of Jon Roffy it provides the musical narration to six cinematic passages that without the use of massive amounts of distortion gets extremely heavy, imparting that sense of impending doom and apocalypse mentioned in the introduction. That’s not to say there isn’t any distortion; the second half of “Uroboros” has a vicious bass tone that dirties up the firmament in such a way the sax and cymbals sound like they’re scraping over the production, letting the notes bleed over the rhythm.

And since there aren’t guitars buzzing every which way, that rhythm section has the room to really shine. Bassist Gavin Thomas joined the band last year, and his presence is just as heavily felt as drummer/percussionists Dan and Chris (last names unknown, but it’s definitely not me nor my partner in crime over at 9C Dan) who use the extra space in the mix to add a vast array of accents with their cymbals and bells. The two combine for an incredibly potent foundation spanning influences and rhythms from around the world for Roffy to solo over, taking in large swaths of psychedelia, jazz, and even classical with their specific brand of doom post-metal.

There are guitars; I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the work of महाकाली who lends shades and a fullness to the excursions present. In the end Apeiron is an album I get completely lost in, whether its the Angelo Badalamenti/Lost Highway back road midnight drives of tracks like “Moon Over Ziggurat” and “Initiatory Sickness” (my favorites) or the more drone-inspired “Tower of Silence” tracks that divide and close Apeiron out. Just a fantastic layered, mood-driven album I have returned to again and again since hearing it the first time.

Usually at night.