On the back of the self-released debut from San Francisco post-doomers Nero Order, there’s written the following: “There is sustenance and there is death. Beyond this, nothing is for everyone. Do not mistake familiarity for cohesion. He who draws a line does not necessarily do so for want of the ability to create a circle. There is the wheel and there is the road. This is our will.” It’s a far cry from Type O Negative’s “Don’t mistake lack of talent for genius” from the back of Bloody Kisses, but apparently, Nero Order, whose four-track/54-minute full-length is called The Tower, have a lot to say. Indeed, the four-piece, which formed in 2006, is virtually clawing at “the epic” from the get-go. From that on the back of the digipak to “All of nature is restored by fire,” quoted inside, to the fact that the shortest song on The Tower, “Celebration of a Wounding,” checks in at nine minutes and the longest is nearly twice that, Nero Order’s ambition seems limited only by how much a disc and a listener’s attention will hold. Joined by Oxbow and literature’s own Eugene S. Robinson for third cut, “Every Pillar and its Crumbling,” the band seems all the more geared toward the grand.

That has its ups and downs, like everything. Anyone who’s ever heard Napalm Death knows a 30-second song can be an epic and that mere track length doesn’t determine anything more than a band’s ability to interconnect and/or repeat parts. The Tower at times has that part-collection feel to some of its songs, and somewhat ironically, it’s “Celebration of a Wounding,” which follows opener “Signs of Five” (11:21), that affects the most cohesive build. While much of the other material follows the post-hardcore/post-metal (whatever genre you want to stick these guys in, they’re post-it) ethic of intellectualism in approach, it seems to do so at the expense of a structure. That’s not to say guitarist Harper doesn’t have an idea the path the tracks are taking – it’s not like Nero Order are just jamming out – but it’s hard to write a song that’s 11 minutes long and that still feels like a song. The Tower drifts into and out of fast and slow tempos, and vocalist Lindo adapts his voice from woeful shouting to semi-melodic clean singing accordingly, and though the vocals are well mixed, they sound dry and like they’d benefit from some reverb, to help accentuate the sonic space Nero Order are creating musically. The rhythm section of Hoyt on bass and Butler on drums has its work cut out for it in keeping up with the changes, but one expects if “slapping it together and rolling with it” was Nero Order’s thing to start with, The Tower would be a much different record.

By the time I’m seven minutes into “Signs of Five,” I’m wondering where the song is leading, and if each of the songs on The Tower is going to have a build or just play out piece by piece, and my answer comes, it would seem, with the slowdown before the 10-minute mark. Lindo screams and does spoken word as the rest of Nero Order brings the song to a crashing halt, eventually rounding out with Hoyt’s bass rumbling out the preceding riff’s progression and Butler running across his toms to an eventual stopping point that leads immediately with the next beat into “Celebration of a Wounding.” The effect that has is to approach The Tower as one long piece, and over multiple listens, that seems to be the best way to take it, but it’s still “Celebration of a Wounding” that has the biggest payoff of the record, and with “Every Pillar and its Crumbling” (15:54) and closer “Leveling” (17:36) still to follow, there’s a whole lot of album left after the apex. Still, no doubt Robinson’s proclamations will be a welcome addition for many to “Every Pillar and its Crumbling,” that song’s slower plod providing probably the most doomed moment Nero Order affect on The Tower. In terms of the overall progression, it’s still hard to hear the same urgency of “Celebration of a Wounding” in “Every Pillar and its Crumbling,” but at 11 minutes or thereabouts, they reference the high-pitched screaming of Neurosis’ Souls at Zero opener “To Crawl Under One’s Skin,” and that proves to make the difference in the song.

True too that “Every Pillar and its Crumbling” has a churning crunch to it that satisfies on nearly every level as the guitars rise to swallow the vocals, but I’m just not sure the song has done the work of building to that point before it happens. Much like “Signs of Five,” just where I want the song to be the heaviest – where I really want it to crush – it ends. It’s frustrating, and with “Leveling” still to go, it’s hard to think of The Tower’s last track as a mere afterthought, much as the first moments might sound like epilogue. Lyrical references to the fall of Rome indicate a clarity of vision and purpose on the part of the band, but as Lindo screams the track to a stop and Harper is left to start it over after 12 minutes in with ambient lines leading to a kind of moody ending movement, it seems they’re just once again setting themselves up for the task of rebuilding momentum that was never fully capitalized on in the first place. This section, comprising more or less the final five minutes of The Tower, could easily have been its own track. I don’t know what’s gained atmospherically by joining it to “Leveling,” but it has its own flow and structure separate from the rest of the song, and in some ways is a more complete execution.

Nero Order’s blend of influences is interesting and their methodology could prove both unique and effective. They show marked potential across The Tower to capture a sound that’s really their own, and are only held back by their lack of concern for structure. There are parts where they hit at what they’re going for, but there’s work to do in developing their style in a way that brings the audience with them on their more indulgent stretches. That’s much, much easier said than done, but if The Tower proves anything it’s that Nero Order have a depth to their creativity and a self-awareness of will – as noted in the quote from the back cover – to make it happen. Here’s hoping they get there.

Nero Order on Thee Facebooks

Tags: California, Nero Order, San Francisco, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2011 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.