By Brian Kim
Brutally heavy, breathtakingly entrancing, Lesbian’s latest monolith of a record, Forestelevision, truly is a powerful force of nature.
The Seattle psychedelic metal quartet’s third full length album begins as a bleak and barren doomscape. Droning, hypnotic riffs melt into one another wave after wave, creating a dark haze before blood curdling screams sluggishly drudge their way through the smokey swamp of thick, distorted guitars, rumbling bass, and thunderous drums. Soon enough, the darkness breaks into a series of blazing hot riffs and transcendent grooves, evolving into expansive, spacious soundscapes layered with blistering, tripped out guitar wailings. Occasionally the band will drop into a beautifully serene oasis of pristine guitars and soothing melodies, breathing fresh air into the nearly suffocating vacuum of sludge, but this calm in the eye of the storm is soon disrupted as the band bursts back into the never ending whirlwind of articulate, compelling, psych-metal that is Forestelevision.
While those previously initiated to the sonic powerhouse of Lesbian are sure to expect the band’s usual tendency to lean towards writing sprawling odysseys in the range of ten to twenty minutes, this time they aimed for an even more ambitious vision, Forestelevision is a single behemoth of a song clocking in at just over forty four minutes. While such a lengthy ride can seem intimidating, this grand journey is without a doubt worth the investment of time, and is definitely meant to be enjoyed in a single, stoned out sitting. Within this lengthy sprawl of music, Lesbian traverses the barren deserts of blackened doom to the lush gardens of highly technical progressive instrumentation. They fly over oceans of lysergic psychedelia into mountains of classic, rocking, straight-forward metal, and they venture boldly through everything in between. While many such opuses become stagnant and repetitive, Forestelevision keeps the listener intrigued and interested, consistently delivering solid songwriting with a keen sense of dynamics.
The album ends with an epic crescendo of ominous chants floating behind mammoth walls of guitars and drums, ebbing and flowing before collapsing into a furious, swelling cacophony as the finale. Even after such an arduous aural adventure, Forestelevision begs for repeat listens. With each additional foray into this grandiose maelstrom, there are further treasures to be found.
Forestelvision is out June 25th on Translation Loss Records, pre-order it at http://translationloss.com/
