High on Fire – Death is this Communion
September 18th, 2007
Sludge Metal
Relapse Records
Oakland, California, USA
And so here it is. We have come to the penultimate review in this month’s edition of Discography Deep Dive and what is, in my opinion, the best gosh darned record in High on Fire’s discography. Seriously, almost nothing the band has released comes even close to the awesomeness held within Death is this Communion. Perhaps it’s the fact that this record was my introduction to the band, and it also happened to come out just as I was first getting into heavy music, which would’ve been around mid-2007. Granted, I didn’t discover High on Fire until a while later, but still, this album hit me at exactly the right moment when I finally did get around to it. I suppose then, in a way, this review could also be considered a part of my Formative Forge series given the impact it has had on my life and my taste in music.
Death is this Communion, High on Fire’s fourth full length, would be the final record the band released on Relapse Records before making the switch to E1 Entertainment for the follow-up, 2010’s Snakes for the Divine. For a swan song for their time with Relapse they couldn’t have gone out in a better way because this record is absolutely monstrous. From the first riffs on the opening track, “Fury Whip”, you know you’re in store for an album that is going to kick your fucking ass all the way down the curb and back. It does not relent, but also doesn’t just bash you over the head with noise either (even though I like that kind of thing).
Nah, this record has variety, man. This record has balls but it also has the goods to make sweet love to your earholes. Matt Pike and friends really pulled out all the stops for this thing. I love, for example, how “Waste of Tiamat” transitions seamlessly from the exotic, seemingly Arabian-influenced acoustic guitar flourishes into the crushing sludge of the electric guitars. The title track might have one of the catchiest vocal hooks on the entire record, which when combined with the slow, crunchy grooves cooked up in the instrumental just makes for such a heavy yet disgustingly sexual cut. Listening to this song makes me feel like I’m watching some sort of hideous pagan orgy in a muck pool in some dark, swampy forest in Louisiana.
The riffs on this thing blow anything High on Fire did prior out of the water, in my opinion. I’m not sure if the addition of yet another new bassist in the form of Jeff Matz, who would remain the band’s permanent bassist from that point forward, had anything to do with it with regards to the writing process, given especially how the band was already on the trajectory that would lead to the sound of this record on their previous release. That said I think Pike and Matz are a killer combination on this thing. Every single song on this album is chock full of savage riffs that do not hold back in terms of their relentlessness. On top of that Pike also shreds his guitar like he’s never done before. Some of the solos on this thing are fucking insane to listen to, and really help to drive home that “mud-covered tank ramming through a dense, boggy forest” vibe that this album conjures.
Des Kensel, once again, proves just how fantastic of a drummer he is based purely on the fact that the drums on this record are a huge part of what makes the album so damn catchy. It’s not often that I feel like the drums are such a focal point in what makes a song “catchy” by traditional standards, yet here we are. The constant rolls during the opening of “Rumors of War” or the bass drum triplets coupled with the toms during the main riff of “Death is this Communion”, followed by the roll that transitions the verses into the chorus, are just some examples of Kensel’s impeccable and unique, noticeable writing style. A huge part of what makes High on Fire’s sound so memorable, particularly on this album, are the drums. He kills it. He slaughters it. Magnificent.
The production on this album, which was handled by Jack Endino, who famously worked with many of the bands responsible for the grunge movement such as Nirvana and Soundgarden, is immaculate. This is how a modern metal record should sound, in my opinion, at least one released in this genre. It’s clear and loud as fuck. The volume on this album absolutely begs to be cranked to the razor’s edge of what volume your meager speaker system can handle. At the same time there is a very noticeable layer of grease and grime to the instruments. Perhaps its the level of fuzz cranked through the amps used by Pike and Matz. Perhaps its the sheer thickness and weight in the toms and the bass drum. Perhaps its how raw and vicious Pike sounds as a vocalist. Either way I can’t shake the feeling that this record was coalesced in a mushroom cloud where the smoke is comprised simultaneously of marijuana, exhaust fumes, and the smoke left over after an alchemy experiment gone awry.
I cannot heap enough praise upon this record. Again, I’m not sure if it’s just because this album came to me at a point in life where I was primed perfectly for this style of music to just hit, but even at this point in my life, more than 10 years down the road, it still fucking hits! This album is just all killer, no killer from front to back. Even the goddamned interludes, one of which is just a drum beat repeated over and over as the volume increases, are out of this world amazing. It’s rare for an album to generate this kind of response in me, but here we are 16 years after the fact and this thing still goes as hard as it did the day it was released.
Final Verdict: 11/10
Beyond the Mortal Comprehension of Awesome
Favourite Tracks:
“Fury Whip”
“Waste of Tiamat”
“Death is this Communion”
“Khanrad’s Wall”
“Turk”
“Headhunter”
“Rumors of War”
“DII”
“Cyclopian Scape”
“Ethereal”
“Return to NOD”
~ Akhenaten
Where Strides The Behemoth? 