Lord, Awake: No Explanations Necessary
Posted in Reviews on March 25th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
It’s been five years since tumultuous Virginian outfit Lord issued their last album, and that’s long enough. That album was 2011’s Chief (review here) and it revamped their lineup from their 2007 debut, Built Lord Tough. Their third long-player, Awake, largely does likewise, finding founding guitarist/vocalist Willy Rivera and returning lead vocalist Steven Kerchner (also synth) joined by guitarist/vocalist Todd Weurhmann, bassist Chris Dugay and drummer Kevin “Skip” Marimow. Recorded by Vince Burke (Beaten Back to Pure) at his Sniper Studios and released through Heavy Hound Records, there’s a half-decade-later sense of continuity between Chief and the seven tracks/39 minutes that comprise Awake, at least in the band’s stormbringing intent toward Southern sludge, grind and heavy riffing, but at the same time, the new release sees Lord move into a different class of presentation, melodies creeping into songs like “Reset the Wave” and more complex arrangements marking out the acoustic-led “Great Communicator.”
Lord still wield no shortage of fire and fury throughout Awake — the arrival of which was preceded by the 2014 EP, Alive in Golgotha (review here) — as “Breathe,” “Strangers on the Road” and the apex of the closing title-track demonstrate, but although the band’s approach has always been multifaceted, it’s more mature here, and from the initial rush of opener “No Explanations Necessary” through the thrashing turns of “Reset the Wave,” there is a corresponding sense of Lord holding the reins on their own style, which is something they haven’t done before to such a degree. It would be hard to argue they don’t still let loose on plenty of this material, especially the aforementioned finale, but the context for what they do has deepened to a point of being about more than an onslaught.
As a result, even as “One Step Away” rages with blown-out shouts and scorching, abrasive synth squeals, it maintains a sense of forward direction pushing into its mid-paced bridge. Likewise, at Awake‘s open, Lord shift from gallop into a bigger-sounding slowdown that brings forward the vocal arrangements that become such a key element of their still-plenty-unhinged atmosphere throughout. With Rivera and Weurhmann behind Kerchner — whose already varied approach switches at a measure’s notice between an echoing croon, howls, screams and growls — the band explores a depth of layering that Alive in Golgotha and Chief, in hindsight, set in motion, but that Lord in their current incarnation make a calling card with these songs. As “Breathe” lays down highlight basslines from Dugay and a circular rhythmic pattern that borders on exhausting in its thrust, screams are patterned and interwoven so that the affect is even more chaotic. They’ve always been at home in a tempest.
“Breathe” offers one, and they follow-it with the strumming Southern ritualizing of “Great Communicator,” airy and unplugged, layers of vocals building as it moves through, holding back drums initially but unable to resist topping out with an electrified solo near the end, capping a fluid linear build that’s been playing out all along, one piece added to another to another. Interesting that Lord sandwich “Great Communicator” between “Breathe” and “Strangers on the Road,” which follows, since those two are arguably their most raucous inclusions here, but if their point is to make a contrast, they most definitely succeed, “Great Communicator” ending on fading echoes and drums and “Strangers on the Road” picking up with immediate growling guitars, stomping drums and an engulfing sprint into double-kick, death growls and two minutes of unrelenting intensity.
“Strangers on the Road” pulls back on the throttle somewhat as it moves through its midsection, but it’s a temporary shift, building back through a screamed-over solo toward the initial riotousness, which ends with a howl from Kerchner that bleeds right into “One Step Away,” the screams for which are backed by melodic echoing vocals for greater atmospheric presence. The threat is plain enough in the song’s title, but “One Step Away” never feels like it’s chestbeating or playing to anything other than its own mania in its early going, which settles into an exhale of chug in its second half, builds up again and finally seems to resign itself to a series of slowing crashes. Riding a more straightforward groove, “Reset the Wave” starts with a similar interplay of clean and harsh vocals, but establishes its own personality in its coinciding restraint and sludgy aggression. By the time they get around to the solo, Lord are thrashing again, and they meet that with sped-up viciousness, but the first half of the track seems to be setting the stage for that later aggression, various sides of the band being crashed against each other in a way that both works sonically and emphasizes the volatility that is very much still at the heart of what they do.
I don’t think there’s a point on Awake that brings that as much to light as “Awake” itself. The longest inclusion at 7:49 and the last statement, it takes all the madness preceding and seems to sing-along to itself in its first verses before turning through movements of guitar, manipulated vocals, screams, chug and churn, emerging momentarily from this tornado of its own making only to be drawn back in and upward toward some unknown but horrifying oblivion of nod, death growls, squibblies and crash, until finally the drums are the last remaining piece as everything else rumbles out and it seems like they’re still ready to run. The tension Lord work to their advantage throughout Awake works in very much the same way, and while this may be a more mature presentation from the band than even Alive in Golgotha showed, the fact that they can control their sound at all only highlights how underrated they are. No bowing to trend, no compromising vision, no stopping their progress. We may only get a new Lord record every four or five years, but that’s all the more reason to treasure them when they do show up.
