LAZARUS BIRD

Lazarus Bird is one of those albums that I almost have to trip over before I remember I own it. But whenever I remember I do I'm stunned how good it is. Long intricate songs with techical and progressive riffs, and with melodies that are both complex and catchy enough to grant endured enjoyment. There's also lots of varations between aggressive parts and slightly spacey moody sections. Somewhere betwen Mastodon and Alchemist maybe?

I guess the reason why I need to be pushed to listen are the dry hardcore shouted vocals which are not my favorite unfortunately. It depens on my mood but somehow they come off as too one-dimensional, missing the diversity of a regular melodic voice and also lacking the fear, depression, madness and other jolly moods that death or blackmetal vocals seem to conjure up. But hey, it's nothing business, it's personal.

Another criticism I tend to have on my bad days is that these guys have difficulty convincing me of their proper identity, sounding exactly like 75% Mastodon and 'something else' for the remainder of the time. The two don't always interact to create a personal sound. Symptomatic is the track 'Cripple God', which consists of Mastodon for 4'40'' and then a nice spacey outro of 2 minutes that could have been from Alchemist or Pink Floyd but that has nothing to do with the rest of the song. Other songs like 'City Cloaked' merge their two sides more successfully.

Luckily for the band I don't have a bad today so I could fully enjoy their many strengths, as in fact, I believe they're better then Mastodon, if only for not annoying us with nasal clean vocals. Great album!