Struck by Lightning’s Adventures in Herpetology (And No, that’s Not an STD Joke)

There must have been something in the accompanying press release that turned me off Columbus, OH’s Struck by Lightning initially, though I can’t remember what. Somehow their Translation Loss debut, Serpents, wound up at the very bottom of my to-do pile and I’m only getting to it now. Though the artwork had me thinking Converge for some reason and wondering if they’d even be appropriate for this site, once I actually popped the disc in and gave it its fair shake, discovery trumped assumption and the four-piece proved to not only have some of that hardcore vibe, but also a good deal of the new-school gangly-note prog à la earlier Mastodon or, you know, everyone else who bit off them over the last decade.

I’m holding off putting Struck by Lightning in that category, however, mostly because the focus on Serpents is so much less on noodling and so much more on jagged-glass heavy abrasion. There are definitely forces at work from the metallic realms, as on “The Watchful Eye,” but the band avoids sounding too much like anyone in particular, and more importantly, is in no way a metalcore cliché. That’s paramount. This is not chugga-chugga breakdown metal, and since I’ve had to listen to it a couple times now for the purpose of this review, I’m increasingly glad about that.

Melody comes on some of the tracks but not all, and guitarist/vocalist Gregory Lahm seems comfortable in either situation. Lahm is formerly of Mouth of the Architect, but nearly all traces of that band’s post-metal style are gone from Struck by Lightning. The punkish “Supercell” sees to that, though the later, wonderfully-named droning interlude “Collection of Teeth” could just as easily fit in one genre as another. That it’s followed by the upbeat, high energy swinging punches of “False Hope” makes all the difference.

Joining Lahm are guitarist Mike Leach, bassist John Peters and drummer Travis Kline, each of whom proves an essential ingredient to the destructive whole; Peters and Kline particularly capable of lifting whatever musical weight is set before them in following the riffs from Lahm and Leach and keeping in step despite the many hairpin changes a song like “Tightening the Noose” might present. The violent feel of the material that pervades even the slower, more groove-based “Becoming Earth” is an ominous constant, but Struck by Lightning do a decent job of keeping the songs active enough to avoid redundancy or boredom either on their part or ours. It would be a stretch to call these songs “rich,” but there’s plenty to hear in them for anyone willing to take the time to listen closely.

Their thing isn’t really my thing personally, but for what they’re doing, Struck by Lightning are doing it impressively well. Serpents is a solid and forceful album with as much focus on diversity of sound as on brutalizing the audience. It’s very heavy in a modern sense, bending different styles to its will and coming out the other side with a product more its own than not. I’m not sure if Lahm and company are going to reshape anyone’s opinions on what the class of 200X did for metal, but their debut has me interested enough to see where they go from here, which should count for something.

Struck by Lightning on MySpace

Translation Loss

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