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| Artwork by Maciej Kamuda. |
It’s taken me a while to finally get to Spaceslug’s Eye the Tide, a slow burn of an album that eventually seeps into your skin.
First track “Obsolith” is an easy starter that lazily drags along the surface. Heavy blues-tinged guitars create a comfortable, consistent rhythm that makes you want to groove and move your body to the beat. The song exudes a sensuality that I tend to associate with post-metal. It feels like touching a live wire whose current emits a warmth that feels intimate.
The layered vocals sounds like a unified voice. All members sing on the album, but if you listen closely, you can hear all the different timbres. For the most part though, the music focuses on the instruments, as if the band recorded this while they were jamming out in someone’s basement. The use of reverb and tone throughout the album seems to also be a character in itself, coming and going when it pleases. There isn’t a focus on it, but when it comes, you will hear it and be swept by it.
As the album continues the vibe seems to shift, going from that relaxed, intimate atmosphere to something a little more sinister. In the third track “Eternal Monuments” the repetitiveness heard in “Obsolith” begins to combine with lower guitar tones. The beat slows and fades away into the next track, “Words Like Stones”, where the music becomes more aggressive with harsh vocals and even blast beats. Like a drug-taking experience, where the psychedelia kicks in about halfway through and then you can only bask in it. The music also tend to drone in the latter half, as the atmosphere ebbs and flows between laziness and mania.
I found myself coming back to Eye the Tide at different times throughout the past year, each time liking it more. Spaceslug's blend of stoner doom is a delight we all need to hear.