Cities of Mars, Temporal Rifts: Opening Doors of Dark Matter
The year? 3251 BC. Martian civilization is in peril. There is a civil war taking place on the Red Planet and an evil scientist has just unveiled an army of mechanical spiders that may indeed turn the tide.
Such is the setting for at least part of Cities of Mars‘ debut album, Temporal Rifts. The Gothenburg-based trio’s first full-length arrives as their first release for Argonauta Records after two initial outings in the 2016 Suicide Records EP, Celestial Mistress (review here), and 2015’s self-released Cyclopean Ritual/The Third Eye (review here) single, both of which took place in the same canon being built by the sci-fi-driven heavy riffers. Their frame for narrative delivery has since that first single has been the discovery of this ancient Martian culture by a KGB agent named Nadia, somehow linked to the Celestial Mistress herself, and it seems that each new Cities of Mars track adds something distinct to the overarching tale or the setting in general.
Cities of Mars have been engaging in world-building all along, it seems, and Temporal Rifts is their deepest dive in that regard to-date, with five tracks and 35 minutes of what also happens to be the most complex material they’ve yet unfurled, moving fluidly from more straightforward and hook-driven fare in the opening salvo of “Doors of Dark Matter Pt. 1: Barriers” and “Envoy of Murder” (premiered here) to the post-Mastodonic progressive metal of “Children of the Red Sea” and from there even further into atmospheric depths. It seems time and storyline aren’t the only things Cities of Mars are exploring. After having felt their way through a nodding round of short releases, they’ve also clearly set themselves on a creative journey of sound as well.
All the better to avoid one of the most prevalent dangers when it comes to conceptual or narrative material, and that is the sacrifice of song to the story. Recorded by Esben Willems of Monolord at his Berserk Audio studio, Temporal Rifts doesn’t veer into spoken word interludes or feature dramatic character dialogue as some plot-fueled records do, but there’s still a strong sense of the material being tied together across an arc, and this is skillfully brought to bear while also allowing individual pieces to shine on their own. A hard balance to strike, but particularly by setting “Doors of Dark Matter Pt. 1: Barriers” and “Envoy of Murder” loose at the outset, guitarist/vocalist Christoffer Norén, bassist/vocalist Danne Palm and drummer/vocalist Johan Küchler set a tone specifically geared toward the delivery of heavy hooks more akin to their early material.
This is rawer in style than what Temporal Rifts will begin to present once it moves into the centerpiece “Gula, a Bitter Embrace,” and into the eight-minute pairing of “Children of the Red Sea” and exclamatory closer “Caverns Alive!,” but the effect remains prevalent, allowing the later tracks to have a fuller context in answering the earlier ones through their own memorable parts as they also push well beyond in terms of ambience. In beginning that process, “Gula, a Bitter Embrace” is very much the centerpiece of Temporal Rifts and a key moment of methodoligical transition. At just under seven minutes long, it begins at a nod that reminds immediately of Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats through its initial riff, but soon unfolds a denser verse and an instrumental bridge topped with an airy lead from Norén. The march resumes for the next verse and carries Cities of Mars past the midsection, into a back third marked by a more melodic vocal arrangement and winding guitar progression. It turns out to be set to a linear build but caps with a significant payoff, but the patience in the band’s delivery thereof is a marked shift in approach alone, never mind the melody preceding or the winding lines of guitar at the foundation there.
It is as suitable a lead-in for the spacious beginning to “Children of the Red Sea” as one might ask, and though the penultimate track, which is the longest on Temporal Rifts at 8:27, shifts into sharper-edged riffing soon enough and makes its way into more intense chug-and-churn as it moves through its midsection, what follows starting at about 5:07 is a stretch of minimal, quiet guitar and cymbal washing, sparse sampling and other noises. They’re back to louder fare soon enough, pushing “Children of the Red Sea” to its apex, but the effect remains, and moaning vocals that started out the song return over the ending riff cycles, which give way to sampled wave sounds at the end, met by a doppler timed to the drums at the outset of “Caverns Alive!”
The closer also takes a linear course along a progressive and mindful execution, and like “Children of the Red Sea” with its vocals on either end, the doppler returns at the end of the finale, along with insistent percussion, capping Temporal Rifts with a symmetrical sensibility even beyond what Cities of Mars have already conjured through the LP’s structure. Although they’ve already shown significant growth from one outing to the next, it’s important to keep in mind that Temporal Rifts is still their debut outing, and that as much as they’ve begun to elucidate this engaging story of Nadia, Martian robot spiders and ancient mysteries, so too have they only really just begun their own story as well, and that it’s entirely likely the proggy aspects that show themselves here particularly in the final two cuts are the beginning chapters of an entirely different mythos.
Cities of Mars, Temporal Rifts (2017)
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Tags: Argonauta Records, Cities of Mars, Cities of Mars Temporal Rifts, Gothenburg, Sweden, Temporal Rifts
Hi, great review. Only 1 thing, Celestial Mistress was not self released but released by the excellent label Suicide Records.