Burning Gloom, Amygdala: Out Beyond Walls
Posted in Reviews on July 15th, 2019 by JJ Koczan
For a band to switch names is no minor decision. First of all, once past the initial over-thought process of picking one in the first place, the band name becomes more than just a collective brand, it’s a flag you fly. And that’s for bands starting out, never mind those who already have a release under their belt. Italy’s My Home on Trees had two in 2015’s How I Reached Home (review here) debut and their prior 2013 self-titled EP before they made the decision to morph into Burning Gloom, so it seems all the more of consequence. The lineup of vocalist Laura Mancini, guitarist Marco Bertucci, bassist Giovanni Mastrapasqua and drummer Marcello Modica is intact despite the transition, and Burning Gloom offer their own debut, Amygdala, through Argonauta Records as an aggro-spirited eight songs/47 minutes that still keeps a sense of atmosphere in its echoing instrumentation and voices.
Mancini, joined by High Fighter‘s Mona Miluski on “Nightmares,” switches smoothly between melodic singing and harsher screams, either driving the change herself, as on “The Tower II” or following the linear build behind her, as in the payoff of the subsequent “Eremite.” Heavy rock is a tool in their arsenal, as the central riff to the penultimate “Beyond the Wall” will attest, but Amygdala is less centered on playing to genre than it is on establishing and developing this new identity for the group. There’s a current of ’90s alt rock in the proceedings from the outset, as brief 2:48 opener “The Tower I” sprints out of the proverbial gate, and though Burning Gloom will wind up in a much different place by the end of the record in the reggae-inflected initial verses and quiet melodic finish of eight-minute closer “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,” the journey from one to the other wants nothing for cohesion either in the individual songs or in how they’re drawn together. They seem to find middle ground, suitably enough, in the middle, with “Modern Prometheus” drawing together elements of sludge rock, grunge and heavier churning groove, but Amygdala is neither summarized within or built around a single track. It’s a whole-album album.
And that seems to suit Burning Gloom‘s purposes just fine as the Milano four-piece make their way deeper into the emotional and atmospheric mire as “Modern Prometheus” and “Nightmares” give way to “Warden,” which is longer at 7:47, has a slower rollout in its first half — they get into some gritty-style shuffle late, or at least what would be shuffle in a different context — and signals the arrival at Amygdala‘s final salvo. Though really, if one wants to trace the change further, the arrival of Miluski on “Nightmares” at the outset of side B is a departure in itself from the first four tracks — her recognizable scream and growl adding to Mancini‘s own approach as the track drives toward its fadeout. That plunge at the end feels especially crucial in what it does to set up the mood of “Warden” and the subsequent “Beyond the Wall,” and it’s not that “The Tower II” or “Eremite” or “Modern Prometheus” were wanting for some deeper sensibility, but the balance of aggression shifts after the Mancini/Miluski blowout in “Nightmares,” and the energy with which the end of that song is executed — the sheer metallic feel of it — seems to be as far as Burning Gloom are willing to push in that direction this time out.
To be fair, it’s pretty far, and Miluski‘s contributions there would be enough to make Angela Gossow blush. But it’s in “Warden,” “Beyond the Wall” and “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder” that the dynamic of Amygdala more fully begins to show itself, and it’s not just that the songs are longer — “Beyond the Wall” isn’t, at 5:32 — but in how they relate to the initial impression of “The Tower I,” its companion and the others on side A. Everything fits together, and so Amygdala reveals itself as even more of a second album than a first, though part of what makes it exciting is that though the band benefits from their time as My Home on Trees on the level of basic chemistry, they’ve made this conscious decision to embark on something new together. As the manifestation of that, Burning Gloom‘s debut is all the more engaging, even down to the accented croon on “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,” which only adds to the sway of that song’s beginning moments.
Like a lot of Amygdala — the part of the brain’s limbic system in which emotions are processed — the finale is a subtle build, but it has enough time at its disposal to hit its payoff in the middle and even out again, choosing not to end the record not on an all-go push, but with a more gentle, easing letting go. It’s only about a minute and a half longer than, say, “Modern Prometheus,” but its purposes are compellingly different, and underscore the band’s purpose in crafting such breadth between the two sides of the record. If one goes back to the beginning of My Home on Trees, they’ve been a band for about seven years, and the shades of grunge, post-hardcore, heavy rock, sludge and whatever else they throw into Amygdala stand as testament to the work they’ve done thus far into their tenure to develop their sonic identity.
At the same time, Amygdala is Burning Gloom‘s first album, and an even-more-purposeful first album for the fact that they became a new band to make it, so while it’s forehead-slappingly plain to hear once one understands they’d worked together before, one has to acknowledge the element as well of forward potential in these songs and most of all in the way they interact with each other across the full span of the collection. I would say that’s the most resounding impression Amygdala makes, but it needs to be weighed against the atmospheric accomplishments of this material itself, and it’s pick-your-poison whether you want to appreciate what Burning Gloom are doing now or be excited at the prospect of what they might do next. Their heft, shove and melodic prowess is as much realized as it is pointing toward future realization.
Burning Gloom, Amygdala (2019)
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