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A solid shift in song lengths but some material isn't as strong as it could be.-
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| Rwake: Rest |
Doom Metal, Sludge Metal
Relapse Records
September 27th, 2011
- Souls of the Sky - 1:30
- It Was Beautiful but Now it's Sour - 12:03
- An Invisible Thread - 8:59
- The Culling - 16:33
- Ti Progetto - 0:57
- Was Only a Dream - 14:14
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| Review Information |
Release length: 54:15
Review posted on November 3rd, 2011
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| | Overall Score: 7.5/10 |
 
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| Discography |
Discography covers all information available up to day of review and is updated if future albums are reviewed. |
| Full-Length(s): |
Absence Due to Projection (1999) • Hell is a Door to the Sun (2002) • If you Walk Before you Crawl you Crawl Before you Die (2007)
Rest (2011)
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| Split(s): |
Sloth / Rwake (2004)
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| Demo(s): |
Xenoglossalgia (The Last Stage of Awareness) (1998)
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| Review |
Hailing from Little Rock, Arkansas, Rwake has existed for quite some time now, having formed back in 1997. However, it's as if this group is something new with almost every album. Not in the sense that each album is a completely different experience, though many albums do show some strong differences from one another, but rather that when an album drops, there's more and more people discovering the group for the first time despite their previous four full-length outings. Rest marks the group's fifth album to date, as well as a huge jump in a different direction as far as the material length goes. With some of the longest tracks the band has ever recording, does Rest stand as one of their biggest successes, or one of their biggest downfalls?
Rest kicks in with the atmospheric introduction track "Souls of the Sky," establishing that Sludge sound with female singing against a haunting acoustic piece that seems to be playing backwards. The atmosphere of being lost in a fog establishes a rather clean sound to the audio quality as it builds into the crushing and dirty sounding mixture of Doom Metal paces with Sludge Metal distortion and aggression. The guitar's are loud and simply sound very dirty with clean, haunting chords played for the solos and rhythm with a bass that hammers at the listener with a deep, heavy presence that makes the material sound that much much burdening on the listener. The vocals chime in loudly with screaming vocals over this crushing sound, and the snares of the drum come through perfectly with a deep thud to the bass kicks that fits the album's atmosphere perfectly and allows for a deeper richer sound while the cymbols crash at the perfect level to help make the music both hypnotizing, and just sound even more full in the long run. All of this sets up a powerful, thunderous sound to the material, especially the stasrt of "It was Beautiful But Now it's Not." But, with that thunderous sound, it's sad to say the track actually starts off pretty bland and uninspiring. It's not until the catchier Sludge Metal heavy foundation really kicks in that the track leaves you banging your head along, and even there after when the music slows down again to the trudging crawl that captures the atmosphere established on "Souls of the Sky" a lot better then it did at the start, but eventually loses that and again becomes a little less then inspiring in it's Doom Metal pace unless it ends up creating it's own foggy environment like it can a little less then half way through which also finds altered vocals that perfectly match the building intensity and atmosphere of the track a lot better then the clear screaming that does feel a bit out of place on thse slower passages given the sound the band is putting out.
While atmosphere is clearly important to this release, Rwake is not afraid to leave that concept behind and just unleash some punishing music. "An Invisible Thread" feels like a large departure from "It was Beautiful But Now it's Sour" in the sense that it comes across more as a straight forward mixture of the two styles that works within the means of sounding aggressive and intimidating moreso then anything else, and it really works. The catchier Sludge material of the track does find you banging your head along with it, and also allows the slower Doom Metal concentrated passages to feel a lot stronger and even suiting to the shouting vocals that appear in the mix. The only drawback here is that it's a great song that feels a bit out of place given the environment the band has established on the songs before, and even after it. "The Culling," which comes immediately after "An Invisible Thread," starts off slow and builds up the atmosphere and power from the start before the song actually kicks in almost eight minutes later. This lighter sounding, yet far more depressive track do become a little more intense as you go through, but there's a strong emotional pull to it, and the screaming vocals are performed with a little more energy that shows off the echoing effect nicely to really work with that emotional state the music weaves. While the start may seem as though it draws on for too long, it's well worth the wait to reach the glory that starts near the half way point.
"Was Only a Dream" feeds into the somber, foggy atmosphere once more, though it's definitely a little more restrained compared to the other longer tracks here. Much of the song is focused on slower paced Sludge Metal that is catchy, though not something heavy enough to make you want to bang your head along, and seems to be woven in through some solid transitions that usher in more enchanting or ritualistic style material that you can't help but feel lost in with it's Doom Metal foundation. But, similar to the build up in "The Culling," much of "Was Only a Dream" ends up being atmospheric music with additional vocals screaming random artistic-style lyrics that seem to tie the whole effort as if it were really a dream and interpreting the world into it, having nothing to really do with the song that came before it. However, it does pick back up into a regular song, though not really carrying much of a resemblence to the original material that started the track and almost comes off like it bled into a second track, but didn't really get a seperate track. Both elements of the song are enjoyable though, with the latter being more emotional while also feeling as if it's some kind of inspirational, self-realization attempt both lyrically and vocally that does a good job at it, but not quite uplifting enough against the more epic approach the band takes to round out the song and the album.
Rest clearly finds Rwake trying to change things up a bit musically, and even has more of a conceptual vibe to it. The music is often crushing and/or depressing, and for the most part it really isn't that a release. It has some dull moments such as the start of "It was Beautiful But Now it's Sour" and it's more traditional Doom Metal elements that lack the atmosphere or catchy Sludge material to headbang to, and there are additional spoken word segments that give you positive hope if there's a zombie apocalypse, pointing out a ratio of thirty dead to every one living, and they do fit the atmosphere outside of the very end to Rest where they and the distortion used can start to feel a little boring and overstaying their welcome. Sadly, the album isn't the most awe-inspiring Doom Metal release, with or without the heavy Sludge Metal impression, but it does make for a strong album to just sit back and listen to thanks to that dream-like environment and foggy sound the release can take on through the audio quality and music, which does end up helping the music more then the band's own performance does. Overall, if you're a fan of Rwake, or just like this style of slow, crushing music, then Rest is worth checking out when you get a chance. It may not be the best offering of the style, but it's still a solid effort.
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