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DAILY RECORD: Petrychor
Posted by: Necci – Jun 10, 2011
Petrychor – Effigies and Epitaphs (Krysanthoney)
I have to hand it to one-man black metal band Petrychor; they do two things really well. And lest this sound like I'm damning the band with faint praise, one might consider that many bands in their genre do only a single thing well (whether that's Emperor's bombastic tendencies or Bone Awl's nihilistic dissonance) and the vast majority do absolutely nothing well at all. Of their two facets, the element that aligns them with that style – the metal part – is the most obvious, but the component that sets them apart – their nimble, fleet-fingered acoustic passages – is no less notable.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly where on the black metal spectrum Petrychor falls, and the project seems to draw from many of the arcane sub-sub-genres that characterize the style. The songs are extremely melodic, in the Weakling/Wolves In The Throne Room sort of way that shrouds accessible harmony in layers of distortion and low-fidelity buzz. But it's not exactly another of the post-rock/black metal hybrids that've been gaining popularity of late (which may seem surprising since Tad Piecka, the man behind the band, is also bassist for Los Angeles post-rock band Beware Of Safety) .Songs like “In Remembrance” and “Of Grandest Majesties” have more of a tendency towards a display of instrumental prowess, incorporating flashy guitar work into their grandeur in a manner that recalls early Bathory more than any recent band.
The other half of the band's sound, the acoustic passages, could have easily fallen into cliched metal territory – the use of brief quieter passages has been one of the style's tropes since the beginning, but one that's rarely explored in any depth. Instead, it is typically thrown in for a brief interlude rather than as a work that can stand on its own legs. Piecka proves himself an adept enough guitarist, however, that the quieter moments of Effigies and Epitaphs render the comparable moments of many metal album inconsequential in comparison. There are moments of flashy guitar-work reminiscent of Michael Hedges or earlier Kaki King, just as there are passages that are more inclined towards graceful Segovia-style finger-picking – each one a style that most metal guitarists wouldn't (or more likely couldn't) touch with a ten-foot pole.
The only real qualm I have with the album is that sometimes the two elements abut each other abruptly, jumping from one style to the next without any transition to smooth the process out. If the intention was to shake the listener up, to prevent them from tuning out any part of the band's sound, the sudden jumps are a success, but they tend to interrupt the flow of the music more than anything else. Aside from this, however, the album is a resounding success, delivering bombast without pretension, and displaying aggression without eschewing introspection or aesthetic variety.
By Graham Scala
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