Full Album Premiere & Review: Bismut, Ausdauer
Posted in audiObelisk, Reviews on October 18th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
This Friday, Oct. 20, marks the release of the third Bismut album, Ausdauer (premiere streaming above). A five-tracker being issued through Lay Bare Recordings in the band’s native Netherlands and Spinda Records in Spain, its title translates as ‘endurance’ and in that could be speaking to any number of subjects, from the instrumentalist trio of guitarist Nik Linders, bassist Huibert der Weduwen and drummer Peter Dragt having done the recordings themselves, live, which surely requires more than a bit of stamina, to processing the years since 2020’s Retrocausality (review here), to the war in Europe, now spread to Israel and Palestine. Surely there are no shortage of hardships and tasks and slogs to endure, but from the slow swing in the finishing moments of “Mendalir” through the shoving insistence of closer “Euphoria,” Bismut find places for themselves between ideas of structured heavy rock and more open, at least partially improvised rock-as-jazz jamming, between crunch and stretch, atmosphere and impact.
Retrocausality and their 2018 debut, Schwerpunkt (review here), functioned along similar lines, and a return from esteemed engineer Pieter Kloos (7Zuma7, 35007, The Devil’s Blood, so many more) on mixing and mastering further assures sonic consistency, but while Bismut highlight a sun-reflecting shimmer in the early soloing of “Mendalir” — the first of many of Linders‘ leads that feels exploratory on solid footing — something they’ve never done is to forget about their audience. The live experience — sorry to say I haven’t seen the band — may be central to what Bismut do generally, not the least since they record that way, but they’re still writing songs. Ausdauer isn’t a collection of jams. “Mendalir” coalesces around a riff out of progressive metal delivered with all due force, and moves fleetly through its turn-laced midsection into its final roll and comedown with a sense of plot that makes it that much easier to follow, the opening of “Fuan” — also the shortest cut at 5:55 — sounding like a raw noise rock riff from 1994, because of course.
There are some spacey effects worked in, but “Fuan” builds itself around a grounded-feeling procession that comes to a maddeningly tense head at about the halfway mark before unfolding itself again ahead of a dreamier-echoing solo and a clear turn to improv and percussion from which they make a smooth return a short while later. Effects top a chugging finish like something later Karma to Burn might’ve called an indulgence (it’s not, really) and momentum carries into centerpiece “Despotisme” with a swagger that seems to know what’s coming when the full tonality of the riff kicks in, which is a for-the-stage bounce soon met by an adventure into solo-topped tripping, chug and build and shred and go all sort of slamming together and the math somehow working. Again, the shift from structure to not is discernible — or at least one can be interpreted — but it’s the later ambience/drone of “Despotisme” complementing that relative rush that is affecting, a final note held out perhaps in consideration for the liberal order as the band reinforce the atmospheric thread that’s been subtly woven through Ausdauer from the progressively brooding opening moments of “Mendalir” onward.
Its last echoes fading, “Despotisme” gives over to Dragt‘s drums to start “Mašta,” cycling through a riff with off-the-cuff-sounding flourish before winding through a tense ‘verse’ that even when the guitar disappears holds its anxiety in the low end before they dig into head-down jazzy runs, never actually holding still or even coming close to it, but bringing the song down to near-silence before they gradually raise the volume, coming back up at around six minutes in and hitting decisively into a heavier thrust of riff with the snare punctuating, bass rumbling and guitar spacious in the lead as the bass does some of the melodic work in its place. Stylistically, “Mašta” might be post-post-rock because it’s actually willing to have fun, but its psychedelia is earthly however broad the guitar tone might be, and between that and the organic chemistry of the rhythm section — der Weduwen and Dragt also double in DUNDDW; and indeed, if you had a heavy instrumental psych band, you might want them in it as well — Bismut set up their bookending finale to burst to life over the end of “”Mašta,” an immediate mathiness twisting about 45 seconds in to denser riffing recalling earlier Karma to Burn-ism without actually beings so religiously straightforward.
To wit, “Euphoria” funks out at around 1:30 before returning to its bouncing starts and stops, then moves into a wash of noise before a grand mellowing moves past the halfway mark with quiet brooding in the bass and sparse guitar. You know they’re going to bring it back around. Bismut know they’re going to bring it around. But before they do, the band put themselves in conversation with the likes of early ’00s European instrumentalists and adventurers, Dutch outfits like the already-noted (if parenthetically) 35007 or Astrosoniq, or even Monkey3 from Switzerland; bands whose tenures are marked by a distinctive growth along a charted course. With the caveat of living in a universe of infinite possibility, one would not expect Bismut after Ausdauer to go thrash metal after Ausdauer, but where they reside between heavy rock, jamming, heavy psych and prog, there is plenty of room for them to continue to grow and explore as they’re plainly committed to doing or they wouldn’t improvise at all, let alone on the finished product of an album.
After twisting itself in various sailing knots for the better part of its nine minutes — “Mendalir” (8:59) and “Euphoria” (9:09) bookend as the two longest songs — “Euphoria” caps with a predictable-but-satisfying stop that feels like it’s underlining the purpose behind so much of the material before it, emphasizing the natural meld between songwriting and instrumentalist conversation in their sound and the way Bismut are able to pull the different sides together in a malleable, engaging blend. Whether one might lose oneself in the fluidity of their play, nod to the riffs as they roll by, dwell in its open spaces or grit teeth in its builds, Ausdauer accounts for a range of experiences and, in part through its scope, serves as a defining effort on the part of Bismut to-date. They don’t sound like they’re done finding new reaches and/or refining their approach, but in terms of methodology, they have very obviously learned from their first two LPs and put those lessons to use here.
Bismut, “Fuan” official video
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