NEGATIVE THIRTEEN – Recover What You Can

On their full length release ‘Mourning Asteri’ from 2022, Negative Thirteen tapped into a brilliantly heavy sound. The bulk of the material fused classic doom metal riffs with a sludgy aesthetic which resulted in a well orchestrated, uncompromising record. Unlike some doom-sludge acts, though, the album flaunted a brilliant production job which placed as much interest on the bass as the sledgehammer guitar parts. It could be argued that the material often valued massive riffs over any kind of immediacy, but there was no doubt that this band meant business.

Their 2025 follow up, ‘Recover What You Can’ is often just as heavy, but with a couple of tracks favouring an epic length allowing the doomy band more room for manouevre, it sometimes feels as if Negative Thirteen haven’t so much “branched out”, but descended even more deeply into their own world of sludge derived sounds.

Starting off with their heaviest foot forward, ‘The Desolate’ works brilliantly as an intro, sharing a minute’s worth of classic doom riffs, underscored with a sludgy tone for extra heaviness. Bend your ears past the sheer weight of the riff, however, and you’ll discover a great melody too. Throughout the short piece, the guitar works a dark tune that provides a great twist of a simple descending riff, sounding like a Neg13 tribute to Electric Wizard, before ‘Casket Trail’ sweeps in with an even heavier riff, taking a sludge metal tone and transposing it to a groove metal riff that almost swings. Just in case things are in danger of becoming too frivolous, vocalist Scott Fisher steps in with a brutal delivery. His roar takes the guttural edge of hardcore and applies that to the kind of deep tones you’d expect from a doom metal performance to create something truly uncompromising. Unlike some, though, his rough delivery also has a clarity that allows the lyrics to come through, showing how they’re obviously important, despite Negative Thirteen’s main interest being an onslaught of heaviness. After a few bars, things are dramatically shaken: firstly by the rhythm section (Mary Bielich on bass; Chip Reynolds on drums) dictating a slower tempo, taking things down to a pure doom crawl, and secondly, with the band unexpectedly launching into a massive riff that takes Sabbath-esque stoner metal and makes it almost feel a little playful in a perverse kind of way. It’s here that guitarist Edward Banchs shows off an amazing tone, sharing a classic sludge fuelled downtone, yet still capable of capturing something that feels inviting, whilst Scott’s vocals descend into a near spoken style. Moving back into the slow and doomy riffs, this time augmented by a high toned, piercing guitar and a subsequent hardcore breakdown, this track feels like an almost complete showcase of the band’s talents.

In a change of mood, ‘The Vulture Circles’ opens with a speed driven shred, before exploding into a hardcore workout that takes a stoner metal tone and works a groove that sounds like ‘Inhaler’ era Tad run through a world of extra distortion. Beneath the sharper edges, Mary’s bass work is superb; the shouty gang vocals reinforce the band’s old school hardcore sound, and it’s a real pleasure to hear everyone breaking free of their usual sludge. Delighting in a really heavy tone, the first half of ‘Horizon Divides’ melds a post-hardcore tone to another round classic sounding doom and sludge riffs. This, as you might expect, gives one of this record’s standout numbers a really abrasive quality, but the great production sound gives everything a lift. Working through two minutes of extreme heaviness, the band shares a love for ‘Houdini’ era Melvins, classic Crowbar, and ‘Meantime’ era Helmet taken to extremes, before switching the mood to confound their audience with several bars of superb sounding desert rock. When losing themselves in something trippier, the echoing vocals and reverbed guitar lines have the effect of making the band’s sound appear almost cinematic, like a distant relation to Dust Prophet and Yawning Man. It’s clear that although the band’s heart often leans towards the abrasive, they’re also capable of impressive amounts of melody when required. Re-introducing the heavy riff for a big finish, there’s nothing left to chance. If you’ve found any kind of love for Negative Thirteen previously, this track is set to become a favourite.

At the tail end of an already great album, the final pairing finds the band stretching their doom-sludge to extremes. The nine minute ‘Devil In Your Head’ shares the full gamut of heaviness, opening with everyone teasing with a blend of groove metal and hardcore, which slides between a measured chugging and a lopsided sound that allows drummer Chip to drop in a few more interesting fills. The huge riffs and shouty vocals, again, invite comparisons with early Helmet, and these angular elements are rather smartly countered with a more melodic post-metal influence where Edward adopts shimmering tones that takes his guitar work further into the world of the retro alternative. Despite its many flourishes – and a drop into a much sludgier riff at around the four minute mark – this track still manages to work many of Neg13’s core sounds in a way that makes the different moods flow. Those little layers and detours are vital in helping this lengthy workout fly by, however, and if you’ve made it this far into the album, you’ll find plenty here to love. The title track opens with a riff that, unexpectedly, teases with a warmer tone and a more of a “trad metal” influence, but with Scott quickly sharing a shouted vocal that’s inter changable with other Neg13 work and a transition into more of a hardcore riff shortly after, it’s clear that the heart of the “usual” Negative Thirteen still beats furiously. Although the riffs here are strong – especially those supplying a couple of obvious hardcore breakdowns – it isn’t until the midpoint that things get interesting. Here, the band opts for a very slow riff, but instead of introducing the expected sludge, a cold, post-metal tone allows for more of a gothic/haunting feel, which is really sold via cleaner guitars and a mournful vocal. There’s very little about it that connects with Neg13’s usual fare, but it’s no less great for that, and with a pure funeral doom riff introduced to create a truly threatening climax (joined by Scott in full throat caning mode), it closes this album with a genuinely dark workout that’ll leave the listener wondering where the band will take their oppressive sound in the future.

With ‘Horizon Divides’ first appearing as a digital single in February 2024 and ‘Casket Trail’ arriving on the streamers in May, it’s fair to say that the promotion cycle for this release has been a slow and carefully planned affair. The rest of the material has been more than worth the wait, however, especially when you consider that the almost prog-sludge approach taken by ‘Devil In Your Head’ allows for an even deeper insight into this band’s brand of noise. Overall, this is an epic release that lovers of stoner and sludge derived metal should not miss.

December 2024

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