California's greater Bay Area has always been a hotbed for different music. The 60's had an odd hippie wave of bands with The Grateful Dead and Santana, the 80's had the Thrash scene that became synonymous with Metallica and Exodus, and the area has become even stranger in recent years. There seems to be an eclectic scene that, in my ideal world, would break open a new movement in heavy music. This would be progressive movement in the way Pink Floyd, and Genesis are considered "Progressive," rather than your million-time-signatures-in-one-song Prog. The bands in this scene that would take over the world would be Slough Feg, Grayceon, Giant Squid, and Cormorant. In this world in my mind, Cormorant would be at the forefront of this scene.
Cormorant's last record, Dwellings, is a fucking masterpiece of Progressive Blackened Folk Metal and the band had an undertaking ahead of them. Earth Diver does not disappoint.
Earth Diver marks the first release of new bassist/lead vocalist Marcus Luscombe. However, when I saw them last September, guitarist Matt Solis did much of the vocal work that night so he seemed to be the lead vocalist. Unclear if this was still the case, I asked the band and their response was that Luscombe does all the black metal style vocals, Solis does the "shout-y Neurosis style vocals", and both the "deep funeral doom death metal vocals" and the clean vocals are shared by the pair, as well as drummer Brennan Kunkel. Luscombe does a hell of a job with the band and fits seamlessly into the bands further explorations into black metal.
Their previous albums had plenty of grim moments to them, but there was also an equal amount of folksy weird shit thrown in. Earth Dwellings still has some acoustic picking, but there seems to be much more of a straight-forward melodic atmospheric black metal angle this round, and it really works for them as they were nearing this already. The first real heavy track on the record, " Daughter of Void," exemplifies this new darker approach for the band. The track is start-to-finish galloping blackness, sans a brief melodic portion.
Other stand out more blackened tracks include "Mark The Trail" and "Sold as a Crow." "Mark The Trail" is one of the more all over the place tracks on the record, and because of this I adore it. It goes from lurching to melodic to galloping to blasting… and on to other new places. Each new section was a surprise. "Sold as a Crow" would be my go-to track for evidence of their fondness for blackened-ness. This song absolutely crushes. Both of these songs are blast-beat heavy, and downright icy sounding. It makes me question the choice to release it in the spring. It's far too nice out for this record.
"Waking Sleep" is perhaps the highlight of the record. The song is a nine-minute journey that is part Wolves in the Throne Room and part early-Green Carnation. It opens on ethereal acoustic meandering before erupting into some blasting. This section then breaks into something completely unexpected, and the rest of the track continues to take sudden unexpected turns.
In some ways, one could argue that the band is less prog this round, but I'd rather see it as the band progressing within themselves and doing something they haven't done before. I can tell "Broken Circle" is a Cormorant song, but it is a different kind of Cormorant song. That song and a few others seem pretty close to songs from their debut release, Metazoa, which also featured a different Cormorant than that on Dwellings. Is this not the definition of progression, which is the root idea of progressive rock/metal? Of course, the term has evolved to instead touch on atypical musical progressions, rhythms, etc, and there certainly is still that present as well.
I called it in September after hearing a set that consisted of nothing but new material live, I knew this album would be amazing.
Hear samples here.
Also, respect to them for making a name for themselves while remaining unsigned.
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