Serpentcult - Trident nor Fire review artwork

Rating: 7.2

Country: Belgium

Release Date: 2007

Track list:
1. The Harvest
2. Red Dawn
3. Screams From The Deep
4. Rainbow Demon (Uriah Heep Cover)

Serpentcult - Trident nor Fire

Michelle- Vocals
Stephen- Bass
Frederic- Guitars
Cozy- Drums

There is scarce doubt in my mind that Thee Plague Of Gentlemen's monolithic Primula Pestis record remains my favorite heavy release of the past decade. A contentious claim, to be sure, but the album, for me, is an alchemical distillation of everything I love about heavy music, a dystopian, oppressive bog of Winter and Lysol proportions. The unsavory debacle concerning erstwhile frontman Steve Mcmillan has been well-documented, and the band's subsequent metamorphosis into Serpentcult is a development that invariably engenders a host of expectations and stigmas.

Cosmetically, the band is a wholly individual proposition, eschewing Steve's guttural bellows in lieu of a banshee-like female vocalist, as well as abandoning TPOG's proclivity for dirge in favor of a stampeding surge akin to High On Fire. At the same time, there are enough stylistic commonalities to beg (perhaps unjustified) comparisons to the band's former incarnation. I'm not entirely sure how three blokes manage to channel THIS much pure volume into the confines of four songs, but Fred, Cozy and Stephen once again manage to challenge preconceived notions of “Heavy” on this outing, invoking a sound that is dense beyond all definition. The claustrophobic, larger-than-life immensity of the sound is in itself a wonder to experience, and the band compensates for any perceptible dearth of imagination with pure, unabashed LOUDNESS. The mix also benefits from uncanny separation, which is even more evident on this platter than on Primula Pestis. The depthless bottom-end does not obscure the distinction between the impossibly thick barricades of guitar of the fixture-rattling bass, which distinguishes itself in limber, angular fashion. Each cymbal crash is perfectly captured in the mix, and though the kicks tend to sound a little plastic, as a totality the mix is a genuine marvel, with Michelle being given ample space in the relatively crowded canvas to wail with abandon.

In many respects, I feel as though Michelle is both the thrust and the bane of the band- her off-center vocal arrangements and tangential, thoughtful melodies remind one of the last Sacrilege (UK) monument, though her voice is certainly FAR more forceful and trained than Tam's erratic showings. Yet, while she clearly excels at the upper registers of her vocal range, she tends to flounder in the lower and middle tiers. This is exacerbated by the awkwardness of “Rainbow Demon”, where Michelle replaces David Byron's dramatic grandeur with an awful, hollering interpretation that sounds forced and artificial. It's a real shame, as “Rainbow Demon” has always BEGGED for a just modern doom remake.

Elsewhere, however, there is enough mindnumbing, dumbfoundingly meaty riffing and punishing, propulsive rhythms to please even the most discerning decibel-whore. The Nucleus of the band has, over the course of the past 9 years, etched and claimed its own distinctive sonic niche, and the bulk of the riffs on offer here bear the bloodied taint of TPOG, even if they have been accelerated to a trampling Lair Of The Minotaur-like pace. Of particular interest is the outstanding fingerstyle bass playing, which exhibits a cerebral élan and brash sense of adventure that gives much color to the band's relatively straightforward approach. The infectious, white-hot energy of Michelle, inconsistent as her performance is, spearheads the unrestrained charge of the band and infuses the record with an irrepressible intensity. One suspects, at the close of the EP, that Serpentcult truly made the right decision here.

While this brief offering exhibits a number of relatively negligible flaws, there is no question in my mind that it does justice to the legacy of TPOG while surging stridently towards a brilliant future. This EP portends much for the future, and one can only hope that the passage of time will unveil greater things for this troupe.

May 25th, 2007