The first time I listened to Sannhet’s Known Flood was a couple of months ago when they released this debut album on Bandcamp and on vinyl through the U.S. label Sacrament. My fellow writer Phil has the tendency to send around great new music recommendations and this album was one of them. I listened to it once or twice and liked it and made a mental note to listen to it a lot more. Which I totally forgot about with the huge amount of new releases thrown at me. Now Known Flood sees its release on CD by the Belgium based underground label ConSouling Sounds. “Excellent news!”, I thought as it made me listen to it a lot more again. I was very pleased to see this album getting a worldwide CD release as it totally deserves it. So, I didn't make the same mistake twice and listened to this album again, and again, and again and I now reached the state that I can’t listen to much else. That’s how good Known Flood is. It is a masterpiece of a debut album bringing together a variety of heavy musical genres.
From the opening sounds of ‘Absecon Isle’ you first hear the huge black metal influence which is a recurrent theme throughout this album. Blastbeats are thrown at you in huge succession, with black metal sounding guitar riffs. If you hear these guys for the first time you’ll actually think you’re dealing with another bleak black metal band and you’re waiting for the high pitched screams and gnarly vocals to kick off. But this doesn't happen as there are no vocals on Known Flood and black metal only plays a small part on it. The song quickly moves on to slower drums with post-rock/post-metal (post-whatever) sounding soundscapes and guitar effects. It is hauntingly beautiful.
This is the red line throughout Known Flood. One time you hear blistering blastbeats, the next you hear dreamy echoing sounding guitars (played by John Refano) accompanied with slower played drums and amazing bass guitar work. The rhythm section (Christopher Todd on drums and AJ Annunziata on bass) do an amazing job; Christopher with his hugely varying rhythms and fills and AJ with his complex bass work. It is AJ’s bass playing which at times remind me of the legendary alternative rock band The God Machine. AJ uses a similar sound as The God Machine’s Jimmy Fernandez (who very sadly passed away way too early from a brain tumour), and they both play a lot with open chords mixed with some complex bass patterns. Listen to ‘Safe Passage’, ‘Endless Walls’ and ‘Slow Ruin’ and if you’re familiar with The God Machine you’ll hear what I’m talking about. ‘Haunches’ on the other hand has a real Altar of Plagues feeling about it; those drums, the noise, the screaming in the background. This is maybe not too surprising since Known Flood was recorded by Colin Marston who previously worked with Altar of Plagues.
As mentioned before, there are no vocals on Known Flood, but the band uses a variety of samples and sound loops throughout the album and these work very well. They provide some breathing space and allow you to take in all the greatness of the musical tracks. They basically tie the record together into a complete heavy instrumental masterpiece.
If Known Flood doesn't make it into my Album of the Year list at the end of this year then some seriously amazing albums would have been released in the second half of 2013 as Known Flood is a true contender for the top spot as it stands now.
