Reverend Bizarre Harbinger of
Metal
2004; Spikefarm
You know
what? Only in the world of Reverend Bizarre does it make sense to call a 70
minute release an EP. This is a band whose average song length approached
fifteen minutes in most cases and whose chief type of output was the fully stuffed
double CD. In that light Harbinger of
Metal makes sense as a smaller platter to tide fans over between
epic-length opuses despite being longer than most albums by a considerable
amount. And boy does it draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag for it. I’d even go so far as to argue that Harbinger of Metal actually feels longer
than the nearly 3-hour long III: So Long
Suckers by virtue of its contents being so clearly second rate for the band
in question. Reverend Bizarre’s aesthetic is one that can tumble quite easily
from being entrancing and hypnotic into being tedious and un-engaging, and for
the most part the material here takes that tumble without any real
acknowledgement that it’s happened.
The chief
offender in that respect is “From the Void,” or more specifically the
interminable drum solo that bisects the track. On either side of that black
mark is actually one of the better things on this EP, a clockwork leviathan of
doomy sludge with some nice subtle guitar flourishes in its second half especially,
but having what feels like half of the track (it’s really closer to 4 minutes)
taken up by a not particularly technical drum solo serves only to dilute what
could have been a truly cracking 15 minute excursion. Keep in mind that this is
a full quarter of the release that’s being ruined here – well not ruined but
certainly marred quite visibly – and not just a small segment, and therein lies
the biggest issue with Reverend Bizarre: when one of their longer songs doesn’t
work, it’s a waste of large portion of the release in question. This is
probably why I’m not as on board with them as many seem to be, because while
when their approach works – and here it happens with “The Wandering Jew” so
long as I ignore the vocals – it can be truly entrancing and bleak, when it
fails to work things grind to a halt and never really get going again. I should
also single out the truly tedious cover of Burzum’s “Dunkelheit,” a song I
wasn’t all that enamored of in its original form and whose recasting here does
nothing but bolster that opinion. So that’s two of the EP’s longer tracks that
simply do not work for me on some level; that’s a bad sign right off the bat.
The other
longer tracks fare a bit better, but it’s the interludes that wind up acting as
my favorite parts of the release in the end. “Harbinger” is an ideal opening
salvo, setting the tone for things to come while establishing itself as a
distinct piece and not just an intro. “The Ambassador” is a bit less
well-defined but it adds a degree of cohesion to the release that I can’t help
but appreciate. And “Into the Realms of Magickal Entertainment” seems a bit
atypical at first, what with the clean guitar and ambient textures that waft
around the bass solo, but this difference in approach leads to it being the most memorable of the shorter tracks here. I don’t mean to give short shrift to
“Strange Horizon” or “The Wandering Jew” since both are great examples of what
the band are capable of at their near-best, but at the same time it’s on the
shorter tracks that the craft behind the EP shines brightest, or is the least
encumbered by my distaste for Albert Witchfinder’s vocal style at this point in
the band’s history. I can give them a pass since he’s not as front and center
as he could be – and really, “Strange Horizon” has a good enough instrumental
backbone to support his caterwauling – but I do simply prefer it when he shuts
up and the interludes are prime vehicles for that state of things. [6.1]
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