Full Album Premiere & Review: Dorre, Fortress
Belgium atmospheric heavy noise rockers Dorre will issue their second album, Fortress, on Friday through Lay Bare Recordings. It is a first full-length some years in arriving as the band follow their 2019 debut, Fall River (review here) with a sound that’s changed enough to show just how much time has passed.
The band itself is mostly the same — three-fifths, and having a fifth is new — as lead guitarist Erik Heysns (who also recorded and mixed here), rhythm guitarist Adriaan De Raymaeker, and drummer Wolf Overloop return. But first appearances from bassist Jan Greveraars and vocalist Brecht De Rooms and a generally-upped quotient of twisting noise rock in the songs, a due quotient of crunch laid over progressivism such that the post-Earth psychedelic-leaning outset of “Two Crawled Up the Mountain” feels spacious but not over-the-top in terms of effects wash. As they make their way up that mountain, they’ll find extra push from a earliest-Tool-style shove, and where the only vocals on Fall River were featured on one track in a guest capacity, De Rooms feels like essential personnel on Fortress as the album establishes its mood, somewhere between the Melvins and the regular universe, but with a little niche carved out for itself there.
“Two Crawled Up the Mountain” isn’t screwing around trying to evoke a journey. It becomes one, and the march-into-burst of “Ender” bookending on the record’s B-side reveals a hidden strength in a drinking-song-style chorus and some later melodic outreach in the guitar. Since it’s lumbering, let’s call it a hardcore influence, but not really, and especially not when “Ender” lumbers its way from its noisier, scream-topped finish to swing jazz, somehow inevitably. “Human Condition” and “Carbonite” are shorter and might inherently give a more direct impression than the longer songs, but the truth is more complex and still plenty weird. At 5:29, “Human Cyborg Relations” goes full-Melvins jab in the verse, but there’s Voivodian unreast in the sound as well as it moves to and
through the chorus, and when they get to the big riff-out before they tear it down and stomp out a more aggro ending, the sense of space is palpable. Hmm, a reord that ebbs and flows willfully, not in telegraphed hackneyed post-metallic volume trades, but with intention beyond genre and individualized nuance of tone and rhythm? No, I’m not surprised I think it’s good either.
But how Fortress sounds — the overall affect of the thing — is something of a surprise. Certainly Fall River had its more intense stretches, but this is something that Dorre have refined to a point of weaponization. “Human Cyborg Relations” ends shouty and mathy and turns right to the chug of “Carbonite,” with Greveraars proffering highlight bass runs alongside and a take that’s like art rock without the component of takes-itself-too-seriously that defines that designation. “Carbonite” also spaces out in the middle, and pushes into broader atmospherics in its second half, seeming to chase a thread farther and farther away from where the song started until at last you just get to an ending of kinda-pretty hits on a long fade before Overloop sets the pattern at the start of “Ender,” guitars soon to join. Like the rest of Fortress, the finale both is and isn’t expansive in its presentation, and even when it’s time for the hep cats to come in daddy-o because this is the whim we’re following right now, momentum remains on Dorre‘s side. If it’s not the kind of party you expected it would be, I think that’s on purpose.
The thing of it is, though — of course it’s a performative choice being made when and how “Ender” ends. That’s part of the idea. But even that moment, which is a whole different kind of far out than goes “Carbonite” or the Sabbathian roll later in “Two Crawled Up the Mountain,” Dorre aren’t pushing past what the scope of their material can accommodate. That is to say, none of the weirdness that’s pervasive in various forms throughout this long-player is unjustified, and given the multifaceted nature of said weirdness, that’s not nothing. In light of the new lineup configuration, it might not be inappropriate to file Fortress in your mind as their second debut, but there’s no question that Dorre‘s clarity on what they want to be doing has benefitted from the progressive course of their their tenure to this point. This isn’t first-album chemistry, in other words, but it is newly refined in its focus. And kickass besides.
To find that out for yourself, you’re invited to listen to Fortress in its entirety ahead of the release Friday. It goes places, but you can make the trip. I believe it. You should too.
Please enjoy:
Dorre, Fortress album premiere
Dorre’s latest album, Fortress, set for release in February 2025, showcases their most ambitious work yet. Dorre sounds like if ISIS were to be reanimated by The Necromancers, combining heavy riffs with a haunting, psychedelic edge. Evolving from an instrumental duo to a quintet with vocals, Dorre has maintained their distinctive style and creative growth. Prepare yourself for Dorre’s latest sonic odyssey: Fortress, a masterpiece of psychedelic post-metal infused with crushing riffs and atmospheric soundscapes.
LP preorder: https://laybarerecordings.com/
Digital preorder: https://dorre.bandcamp.com/
Tracklisting:
1. Two Crawled Up The Mountain (9:38)
2. Human Cyborg Relations (5:29)
3. Carbonite (7:49)
4. Ender (10:40)
Produced and performed by Dorre
Recorded and mixed by Erik Heyns
Mastered by James Plotkin
Artwork by Giliam Schroyen
Vinyl release by Lay Bare Recordings.
Doore:
Adriaan De Raymaeker – Rhythm guitars
Wolf Overloop – Drums
Erik Heyns – Lead guitars
Jan Greveraars – Bass
Brecht De Rooms – Vocals
Lay Bare Recordings on Facebook
Lay Bare Recordings on Instagram
Lay Bare Recordings on Bandcamp
Tags: Belgium, Dorre, Dorre Fortress, Fortress, Lay Bare Recordings, Leuven
