There has been quite a lot of talking lately on Echoes & Dust about how wonderful our family of reviewers is and how we recommend and talk about lots of new music with each other. Through one of those chats I discovered the band MAKE, a heavy doom/sludge/metal band from Chapel Hill in the United States of America. So, after listening to MAKE’s first album ‘Trephine’ a couple of times, it always made me want to listen to more. And I got my chance when I realized the band had recently released a follow up album called ‘Axis’.
Compared with ‘Trephine’, ‘Axis’ is a lot shorter as it consists of only 3 songs. However, ‘Axis’ still lasts for just over 30 minutes, which is mainly due to the opening title track ‘Axis’ which is a 17 minutes long instrumental epic guiding the listener through a very impressive mix of post-rock, psychedelic stoner, doom and sludge metal.
People who have read some of my other reviews should know by now that I do love a good build up ending in a great climax. MAKE does this ever so well, in fact ‘Axis’ is probably one of the best built up songs I’ve ever heard, increasing the atmosphere slowly by introducing more bass, more guitar, more rhythm and heavier drums very well timed during this long track that never gets bored.
Over the first 2 1/2 minutes ‘Axis’ starts very slowly using nothing more than a distorted guitar effect reminding me instantly of some random one-man drone band. This continues for a couple of minutes while some distorted bass chords and occasional drum hits are being added. Around 6 minutes in bass player Spencer Lee takes a more melodic route playing so psychedelic that my first thought was that I was listening to a very old Pink Floyd record. The guitar playing very hypnotic melodic parts over the near grooving bass line increases the psychedelic feeling even more. In the meantime the drums keep playing a very slow and timid rhythm and you can almost feel the break drummer Matt Stevenson is putting onto himself. This break is finally released after the 10 minutes mark where guitarist Scott Endres pushed on his distortion pedal and lets some heavy sludging riffs escape from his guitar. Towards the end of the song this builds up even more with an increase in tempo, again sounding very psychedelic by the clever use of guitar, bass lines and use of big, heavy cymbals.
The next track called ‘Chimera’ is quite a bit different than the opening track as it opens immediately with a huge sludge/stoner riff and some pounding drums. Bass player Lee also demonstrates his vocal skills as this is the first part of the album where vocals are introduced in the mix. Nearly mid-way through, ‘Chimera’ breaks open a bit whilst introducing a more heavy doom sound, which reminds me a lot more of their earlier album “Trephine’. The track ends in an almost Mastodon-like riff with some heavy grunting and the return of those earlier mentioned psychedelic guitars.
‘Chimera’ neatly flows through into the final track of the album called ‘The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters’. This track starts with some slow drumming, again using some clever bass lines all complemented with lots of spacy guitar effects creating yet another hypnotic piece of music which makes your thoughts wander off into some imaginary world. There is no huge build up to a heavy sludging climax in this song, but instead completely turns into a more experimentally sounding mix of guitar and keyboard which slowly fades out to an end, getting me back into reality.
‘Axis’ is sadly only 3 tracks long, but it does demonstrate a very logical progression from ‘Trephine’ by building up on some of the themes and styles created on that album. Hopefully MAKE will make me happy very soon again with the release of more material which can push me right back into that dreamy imaginary world of mine.
‘Axis’ is out now and available through MAKE’s bandcamp site
Posted by Sander van den Driesche.
