Album Review: Howling Giant, Crucible & Ruin
There is a lot going on here, but from any angle one might on want to examine it, Howling Giant‘s third album, Crucible and Ruin, is a bold step forward from a band who’ve worked hard to make their place at the forefront of the US heavy underground. One could not accuse them of making it easy on themselves in having to follow-up 2023’s excellent Glass Future (review here), on which each of the 10 inclusions felt like a lead single (yes, even the slow or instrumental stuff) for its airtight songwriting, crisp performance and sweeping energy, but instead of trying to outdo themselves, Crucible and Ruin — which is also 10 tracks, but six minutes longer than its predecessor at 47 minutes — pivots to a more expansive aural ideology.
In some ways, the live-sounding crunch of a piece like “Beholder I: Downfall” and the melodic, progressive outreach in “Archon” or the still-catchy opener “Canyons” feel like they’re in direct conversation with the band’s past, but it’s all part of a thread that’s been ongoing since before their full-length debut, 2019’s The Space Between Worlds (review here). Six years after that, and 10 after their first and recently-reissued self-titled EP, the Nashville-based now-four-piece (we’ll get there) stand triumphant in their maturity and craft, with a defined sound of their own that shows little interest in stopping growth. The expanse one hears in these songs is no less a part of their purpose than the loose story they’re telling in the lyrics, and it all ties together effectively to feel definitive for this incarnation of the band. That is to say, if you’ve been waiting to find out who Howling Giant are going to be, musically, you might have just found out.
The album was co-produced by Neil Tuuri, Kim Wheeler and James Sanderson, and engineered and mixed by Tuuri in Ohio. This in itself is a change from past recordings, which have been done with Wheeler, who still recorded additional vocals in Nashville and added synth to the penultimate otherwise-acoustic 68-second interlude “The Observatory,” and would seem to be a conscious choice on the part of the band to try a different approach. The results are that on “Beholder I: Downfall” (which has additional percussion by Adam Nohe of Horseburner) they’re able to recall heyday-Mastodon heft with no less precision or depth of character in the riffing, while “Melchior’s Bones” — a seeming sequel to “First Blood of Melchior,” from the last record, and no less laced with samples for not being instrumental — pushes into the anthemic just as it hits its emotional crescendo. Howling Giant are heavier than they’ve ever been and Crucible and Ruin holds up to whatever volume you might want to give it. The drums alone are mammoth.
Bassist/backing vocalist Sebastian Baltes was the new guy in the band last time around and here feels more present in the mix and in the songs generally in terms of playing off the conversation between Tom Polzine‘s guitar and Zach Wheeler‘s drums — you don’t have to go too far into “Hunter’s Mark” to hear it, let alone “Archivist” — but of course having another guitarist in the band is bound to beef up tones as well. Crucible and Ruin brings Adrian Lee Zambrano‘s studio debut on guitar and synth, and the progressive heavy style of playing he brought to his time in bands like Brujas del Sol and Lo-Pan resonates in this material from “Canyons” onward, in solos and the construction of the riffs. It’s a shift in dynamic from where Howling Giant were songwriting-wise two years ago, and it results in a piece like “Archon” taking its time to flesh out and develop its parts in a way that they wouldn’t or couldn’t have done last time around.
Does that make the songs that make up Crucible and Ruin less direct? On average, probably. “Canyons,” “Archon,” “Archivist” and “Beholder II: Labyrinth” all top six minutes, but as much as Howling Giant have a story to tell — I haven’t seen a lyric sheet, but the purported narrative is “the clash of a novice deity against the forces of primordial chaos” as something of a thematic framework; fair enough — they are cognizant of the need to tell it in more than one way. “Hunter’s Mark” has a dark, been-on-the-road catchiness that hits like a more complex take on what Glass Future offered, while the later “Scepter and Scythe” metals up some of the pop-punk hookiness that has become a part of the band’s persona even as they’ve grown more progressive — it makes sense because songwriting — while “Lesser Gods” is a mellow-rolling gray-day heavy prog instrumental running under three minutes, “Beholder I: Downfall” caps side A in under four, and “The Observatory,” as noted, is just over a minute long.
That’s a convenient way for me to demonstrate variety of purpose on the part of the band even as they unite the material under a storyline umbrella — a variety of songs with a variety of runtimes; derp — but it’s more evident in the actual listening experience, for example in the way the double-kick fades out of “Hunter’s Mark” only to have the drums pick up again from the silence before the burst-to-life melody hits in “Archon.” These little moments, the details, are where the band thrives. With vocals from Polzine, Wheeler and Baltes, Howling Giant are rife with voice-led payoffs, but even into the now-we’re-riding-this-riff-and-this-song-might-have-to-close-shows-forever-and-that’s-okay finish of “Melchior’s Bones,” they don’t push any further than the moment seems to require, and for being Zambrano‘s first outing as a part of the band, his playing informs the material in a number of ways and their range is that much greater for it.
Not that they were shy about layering as a three-piece, but their sound is fuller with Zambrano‘s tone added to it — of course the general largesse of the production is a factor there too — and there are moments like in tense early verses of “Beholder II: Labyrinth” where the proggy chug and overarching vocal melody seem to be competing, especially since the vocals also sound huge with their effects-laced hookmaking, but coming off Glass Future, it feels across Crucible and Ruin like part of what they were focused on in the recording process was getting heavier. In accordance with this, they’re also still growing and exploring where they can go as a four-piece, while continuing to engage their audience with generally uptempo, progressive-enough-to-be-interesting-to-nerds-and-already-in-your-head-catchy, well crafted and impeccably executed songs. Polzine has never sounded more confident as a lead vocalist conveying emotional as well as melodic range, and he and Wheeler instrumentally and vocally are a creative partnership that has continued to flourish over the last decade. This album is a well-earned victory, and to my mind at least, solidifies Howling Giant among the finest active heavy rockers in the US.
Howling Giant, “Beholder I: Downfall” official video
Howling Giant, “Canyons”
Howling Giant, Crucible & Ruin (2025)
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Tags: Crucible and Ruin, Howling Giant, Howling Giant Crucible and Ruin, Magnetic Eye Records, Nashville, Tennessee
Thanks for a great review of one of my favorites in the “hardest working bands” category. Looking forward to checking out the new Howling Giant album.