High On Fire: Death Is This Communion Review
I first heard of this band while searching for information on the Gigantour 2008. These guys are playing at the North American Gigantour along with Megadeth, In Flames, Children of Bodom, and Job For A Cowboy. Tickets for this tour came on sale last Friday.
High on Fire is from Oakland, California. Their music is classified as stoner metal or doom metal. I’m not too sure what kind of music stoner metal is. Personally, I can’t enjoy metal, with the exception of Tool, while I’m high. And these guys sound nothing like Tool.
These guys released their latest album, Death Is This Communion, in September of 2007. They got pretty good reviews on Metacritic. Revolver named the album the 3rd best of the year, after Ire Works by The Dillinger Escape Plan. It had also came in at 4th on Total Guitar’s “50 best guitar albums of the year” and 9th on Metal Hammer’s best of 2007 list.
The sound that these guys produce is fast, throaty, and raw. Their vocals are brutal war cries and their riffs are powerful and thundering. Some of the songs I liked from the album are Turk and DII. Khanrad’s Wall was entirely instrumental and had an Eastern sound to it. Cyclopian Scape sounded a bit Opeth-ish in terms of how the song starts and the way the heavier riffs and the vocals gradually creeps in. There are also really good riffs in the beginning of Ethereal.
Overall, this is a solid album and I give it a 4 out of 5. It is something I would buy if I have some extra money lying around.
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