A Storm of Light

The Metal Examiner: A Storm Of Light’s As the Valley of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade

Every Friday, The Metal Examiner delves metal’s endless depths to present the genre’s most important and exciting albums.

A Storm of Light: As the Valley of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories FadeA Storm Of Light: As the Valley of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade (Profound Lore, 5/17/11)

A Storm Of Light: “Destroyer”

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Since its inception, Josh Graham’s A Storm Of Light has adopted a model that’s based squarely on collective evolution, be it in something as complex as its musical aspirations or something as simple as its personnel. With its fourth release, As the Valley of Death Becomes Us, Our Silver Memories Fade, the group seemingly moves a little further from its loose “project” designation yet seemingly keeps the “band” label at arm’s length.

With its sound rooted firmly in no-frills rock, Valley’s style could best be described as “talk metal” or, barring that, “verbal doom.” Graham’s vocals tend to avoid conventional melody, or at least anything too advanced, instead coming off more as pitched declarations of ideology over the anvil attack of bassist Dominic Seita and newcomer drummer B.J. Graves. Though the obvious comparisons to contemporaries Neurosis or Unsane will make sense, Valley really borrows more heavily from mid-1990s hard rock — the half-spoken, hard-truth heaviness of Rollins Band, or the sludgy Sabbath nods of Soundgarden (fittingly, guitarist Kim Thayil pops in for a pair of guest spots: “Missing” and “Black Wolves”). The chugging “Collapse” evokes a less tom-reliant form of Tool, and the environmentalist-turned-existentialist “Destroyer” finally explains what a Queensrÿche / Alice in Chains / Rage Against the Machine collaboration might have sounded like.

Soundgarden

Record Review: Soundgarden’s Live on I-5

Soundgarden: Live on I-5Soundgarden: Live on I-5 (Universal / A&M, 3/22/11)

In an interview conducted on A&M Records’ Hollywood lot around the release of Soundgarden‘s pivotal 1991 album, Badmotorfinger, bandleader Chris Cornell summed up the iconic Seattle quartet’s approach to working in the studio: “We’ve always been looking to capture what we sound like live on tape. I think that’s what most rock bands try for — and that’s probably most rock bands’ biggest problem when it comes to recording a record.”

It was a curious statement considering that, if anything, Soundgarden had the opposite problem. Known for its signature brand of heaving, de-tuned muscularity, Soundgarden also played a counterbalancing sense of agility to supreme advantage on record. In concert, however, the band routinely stumbled, more weighed down than liberated by its own bulk, to say nothing of the fact that Cornell had trouble matching the piercing wail of his studio vocals.

Fortunately, Soundgarden’s onstage flaws recede to the background on this newly assembled live album. Comprised of recordings from a string of West Coast dates in November and December of 1996, Live on I-5 reveals that Soundgarden, captured here just months before breaking up, was a surprisingly limber and inventive unit. Unbeknownst to the band members themselves — or to recording engineer Adam Kasper, who also manned the boards for Soundgarden’s final studio album, Down on the Upside — these performances would be Soundgarden’s last in the continental USA.

Weekly Music News Roundup

Over the past week, we caught news of a mini Soundgarden/TAD live jam, a new Kayo Dot album, a new/streaming Trash Talk EP, another Mars Volta album, another Zach Hill project, and a release date for the new Tortoise album.  Read about this and more after the jump.