Review & Track Premiere: Shroud Eater, Strike the Sun

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[Click play above to stream ‘Awaken Assassin’ from Shroud Eater’s Strike the Sun. Album is out July 7 via STB Records.]

Check your calendar. It’s been a whopping six years — actually more like six and a half — since Miami sludge machine Shroud Eater released their debut full-length, ThunderNoise (review here). They’ve hardly been idle in the half-decade-plus since then; the three-piece have churned out a slew of shorter releases, from the 2013 Dead Ends EP (review here) that began to give some context to the band’s stylistic expansion from the raw foundation of their initial demo (review here) in 2009 that took place on ThunderNoise and would continue through 2015’s Face the Master single (video premiere here), 2016’s split EP with post-metallers Dead Hands (review here) or earlier 2017’s :th:ree: :cvrses: digital single, which found the trio of guitarist/vocalist Jean Saiz, bassist/vocalist Janette Valentine and drummer/vocalist/engineer Davin Sosa at their most experimental to-date, adding synth to a deeply atmospheric, cinematic but still noise-laden and extremely dark approach.

The stylistic reach Shroud Eater claimed as theirs across these offerings — some just one song long — and from their time spent touring and playing events like Psycho Las Vegas has made it increasingly difficult to predict where their awaited second full-length and STB Records debut, Strike the Sun, might lead them, and across 42 minutes/eight tracks, the band accordingly showcase six busy years’ worth of sonic lesson-learning. They still occasionally veer into the post-High on Fire gallop that typified their early work on a song like the penultimate “Unseen Hand” or parts of finale “Futile Exile,” but on the whole, they offer something much broader, more varied in tempo and mood, and more satisfying than anything they’ve done before.

As each of their outings to this point has brought something new to their approach, Strike the Sun does so as well, and in addition, offers an engaging summary of their evolution over the last eight years. Also worth noting, it is spell-out-the-letters h-e-a-v-y. One might find a tonal comparison point in Conan‘s more recent output for the kind of rumble Shroud Eater bring to “Iron Mountain” early on Strike the Sun or side B’s rolling “It Walks Among,” but even this is only a fraction of the whole when it comes to the complete, dark-hued narrative they’re conveying. The album breaks neatly in half for a two-sided feel, and each begins with an atmospheric intro — the washing drone of “Smokeless Fire” leads off, while “Dream Flesh” starts side B; both are infused with vague, melodic vocals — before digging into three tracks of pummel, drive, roll and nod. Whether it’s the landmark hook that “Awaken Assassin” provides in following “Iron Mountain” or the turn from wah-bass-infused stomp into ambient melodicism on “It Walks Among” — which of course is a setup for that track’s lumbering finale — Shroud Eater‘s dynamic has never sounded more alive.

Creative variety and arrangements of vocals between SaizValentine and Sosa give “Futile Exile” a growing aggression and “Iron Mountain” or the earlier stretch of “It Walks Among” a spacious, shouting echo, but the harmonies in “Awaken Assassin” are not at all out of place in either theory or execution. And neither are they less effective in conveying a mood than some of Strike the Sun‘s more destructive moments in the midsection of “Iron Mountain,” the apex of “Futile Exile” or the whole of “Unseen Hand” are in eliciting a physical listener response, be it fist pumping, headbanging, or some other signal of the righteousness on display. The bottom line is that Shroud Eater bring forth a multi-tiered triumph across the span of Strike the Sun, marked by an impeccable sense of craft, strength through diversity of approach and a cohesive vision of what they want to accomplish as a group. Any concerns of a six-year-later sophomore slump should be duly allayed.

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That is, I’ll allow, a fan’s perspective on what Shroud Eater have done here, and there will invariably be those for whom Strike the Sun is their first exposure to the band. On that level, flourish like the subdued tension in “Smokeless Fire” and “Dream Flesh,” or the samples that top the noisy instrumental side A closer “Another Skin” seems all the more to bolster the impression of the record as a singular entirety. As SaizValentine and Sosa careen and crash through “Iron Mountain” and “Awaken Assassin,” the subsequent pairing of “Another Skin” and “Dream Flesh” — when listening in a linear format; digital or CD — emphasizes a between-songs flow with which full-lengths so outwardly heavy rarely concern themselves.

Likewise, as “It Walks Among” revives the full tectonic doom of their assault, it remains informed by the ambient stretch before it, and the material as a whole plays off itself in this way, giving Strike the Sun all the more a sense of consciousness behind its motivations that winds up summarized in “Futile Exile,” which in addition to being the finale is also the longest track at 7:20. Starting with a swell of volume and thundering crashes, it turns to nod and thrust early before finding a tension of toms as it heads to a more angular midsection, eventually dropping out to quiet in the second half and introducing melodic singing over thudding drums in setting up the crescendo that starts around 6:30 and will finish the record with a cold stop. A little bit of everything and a last warning from the band in that sudden end that they haven’t necessarily had their final word. So be it.

Up to this point, everything Shroud Eater has done has felt loaded with potential. All along, they’ve been a group headed somewhere on the level of individual aesthetic. More than anything before it, Strike the Sun comes across as the destination to which their progression has been leading. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re done growing as artists — I don’t think they are, and nothing in these tracks indicates a readiness to stagnate — but there’s pivotal work being done here to establish what Shroud Eater‘s sound is, both to the band itself and to their audience, and in conveying that, Strike the Sun succeeds in a way that more than justifies the years in its arrival. Feeling greedy, one hopes it’s not so long before a third long-player surfaces, but if it is, at least we know their commitment to developing as artists is unflinching.

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