There are not many heavy-music vocalists who can convey as much emotion in their delivery as Matt Hyde. Malevolent sneers, plaintive bellows, alpha-male roars and fragile crooning – Beastwars are lucky to have him.
Of course he is lucky to have the thundering racket of Nathan Hickey, James Woods and Christian Pearce (drums, bass and guitar, respectively) behind him. Together the Kiwi foursome create the sort of alchemy that other bands dream of.
And it comes together better than it ever has on The Ship//The Sea, an album tied together by a maritime theme, of loss, fear, horror and turbulence. It is a lumbering, muscular collection of ten sludgy songs, steeped in the riff-worship that we have come to know from Beastwars. From the dramatic artwork of a ship being engulfed by a massive sea creature, you know what you are getting.
But more than ever, the band appear to have embraced big anthemic choruses – the sort that would accompany massive spotlights aimed at the audience if they were played live. Like in the first song ‘We Don’t Say Fear’, when Hyde roars “When I was young, ran through the fear” while the guitars chime behind him, it is liable to give you goosebumps.
Beastwars went Method for this album, relocating to a seaside studio in the New Zealand tourist hotspot of Mount Maunganui. While making an album with a maritime theme next to the sea may sound evocative on the surface, the reality wouldn’t have been so poetic. Mount Maunganui is very much a modern town on a gorgeous beach, not a hidden-away enclave where barnacled, bearded sailors swap tales of sea monsters over a pint in a stone-walled pub.
Having said that, the time of year they went, early spring, would have been conducive to creative juices flowing. The beach is near-enough empty, and the sea is usually fairly calm, and the watery sun gives the illusion of warmth.
These songs match that kind of environment (if you like heavy riff-driven music of course – if you don’t, you will probably think these tunes are best for watching cars get crushed or something). While the lyrics are dark, the music has an urgency, a sense of strength overcoming adversities. As I sit in the early northern-hemisphere spring, with the sun out, these songs take on a whole new hue than they did in late autumn when I first got this release to review. Then, they were a little oppressive. Now they are motivational.
The band has stretched out more than just large choruses though, they have also adopted a broader set of colours to their songwriting palette – take ‘Levitate’, a song that starts with a tough motorik chug-chug-chug, and has possibly the catchiest riff the band have ever produced in the chorus.
This is the first album of original songs that feature Pearce, who replaced long-time guitarist Clayton Anderson (Pearce was on guitar for Tyranny of Distance, Beastwars’ collection of obscure New Zealand songs). And while Pearce can riff with the best of ’em, his angular takes are another ingredient in the branching out of Beastwars’ sound.
But if you fear that with this slight steering towards experimentation means the riff is no longer being worshipped, calm yourself. Because there is a lot of riffage going on here. Maritime riffs, recorded by the sea, with no flab – every minute is worth your time. What’s not to like?
