Album Review: Crystal Spiders, Metanoia
Listening to the song “Torche” at the outset of Crystal Spiders‘ third full-length, Metanoia, it’s hard not to grow even more wistful at the thought of Maryland Doom Fest (which the band are playing) ending its 11-year run this month. The North Carolinian unit led by bassist/vocalist Brenna Leath, now incarnated as a three-piece with guitarist Reid Rogers and drummer Aaron Willis both making their first appearance, conjure a groove that feels so much descended from the Eastern Seaboard’s longest-lived doom lineage, and Leath belts out the lyrics — in the opener and beyond — with a reach like nontoxic-Pentagram with soul on top. The band, the music, life itself, are still Sabbath at the root, but able to boogie or doom at will with a fluid, unpretentious groove and a cast that seems to come from traditionalist metal. There’s also some punk in there. And it rocks. It’s kind of a melting pot, and while it’s sure to bring the house down in Frederick in a couple weeks, that shortchanges the band’s potential to spearhead and carry the banner for another generation’s worth of family reunions billed as doom festivals. A missed opportunity.
Mike Dean, formerly of C.O.C. and a bandmate of Leath‘s in Lightning Born, makes an unsurprising but welcome return as producer after helming the first two Crystal Spiders LPs, 2021’s Morieris (review here) and 2020’s Molt (review here). As far as I know, his collaboration with the band on the seven-track/43-minute Metanoia doesn’t extend to playing guitar as it did on Morieris, but this time Crystal Spiders brought their own guitarist, so fair enough. In any case, his stamp can be heard in the organic moss grown on the distortion of “Torche” as it janga-janga-chugs the backdrop to Leath‘s verse, which she delivers in layers I’m assuming because nobody else in the band or otherwise could stand up to doing a duet with her. I’m being glib, but the basic fact is that Leath‘s powerhouse voice is a major distinguishing feature of Crystal Spiders‘ work, and whether pushing through “Torche” or crooning and gnashing in the slower, more atmospheric “Blue Death,” which follows, down to rolling out the Dehumanizer-style epic “OS” at the finish, there is no flinch in terms of command. That Metanoia — the title from Greek for changing your mind, often used in terms of post-psychotic-break personality rebuilding — is more than just a showcase for Leath‘s voice is a credit to the band as a whole, but if it was, I’m pretty sure she could carry it anyhow.
“Ignite” comes in swinging after “Blue Death,” with a riff riding down a highway of Judas Priest classic metal and attitude in the vocals to suit. At 3:46, it’s the shortest cut on the album by about two minutes, and it has the smooth, knows-where-it’s-headed flow of a song that came together naturally in a rehearsal space, whether or not it actually did — digs in, grooves, does what it wants, gets out. Rogers tears into a solo with special aplomb and the ba-dump ending tells you the band are thinking of the stage, which is where a song like “Ignite” will inevitably shine. The subsequent “Time Travel” is the centerpiece and again plays through at a slower tempo, fluid in the central riff with Willis working some strut into the drums as it moves into the verse with Vol. 4-style confidence. A drawling delivery of the title-line backs the chorus, making it that much catchier as it shifts into the ending of side A and a three-song side B that somewhat changes up the direction the songs are taking. Or at least the direction of the direction. That is to say, while nestled comfortably in the space between doom and heavy rock in terms of their tones and general, overarching approach, side B’s “Maslow,” “21” and the aforementioned closer “OS,” are working toward different ends than the material earlier on Metanoia. This, too, finds the band in communion with classic heavy.
Both “Maslow,” which is an atmospheric highlight a little under eight minutes long that holds its own in bookending with “OS,” and the capper itself are grander. They’re more theatrical in their ambitions, and they’re giving a more narrative impression. By contrast, “21” — think gambling — has energy enough behind its shove as the chorus entreats one to “Place your bets” and “Hit hard or go home,” and delivers on the whole hitting-hard promise throughout. The bounce in the second-half solo feels like a tie to garage doom, but it’s really all coming from that place schooled in early 1970s heavy rock with elements culled from the generations of practitioners since. It’s the way it’s used to offset “Maslow” and “OS” that makes it such a signifier of the burgeoning maturity in Crystal Spiders‘ craft. They’ve played songs off each other before, but the complement that “21” makes leading out of “Maslow” and into “OS,” the rumble and a cymbal wash giving over to the final, more ’90s-style roll taking its time in setting up the airy initial verse, isn’t to be understated. And sure enough, “Torche” fits better as the leadoff with Willis‘ count-in conveying urgency and immediately bringing the listener into the momentum of the song.
These are the kinds of things a band should be doing by the time they’re on their third record, but Metanoia is up to more than ticking boxes, and the emergent truth is that the amalgam of tropes and influences they engage along the way results in a personality that is more their own than it has ever been in terms of the songs. “OS” offers some more of that Chesapeake Watershed-style doomly roll along with grungier drawl, but keeps hold of its underlying foreboding such that the shouts after the dual-tiered solo section arrive with due precedent as a metallic, marching crescendo before residual guitar brings it to a finish. Crystal Spiders are not a band that need to take a roundabout way to hooking an audience. Their work, here and with the prior incarnation of the band, is able to engage by coming straight at the listener. They’re not sneaking around. They’re not pulling tricks. Metanoia is full-on heavy rock and roll ready to flatten that which is set before it. It’s gonna kill in Maryland, and well beyond.
