aaamusic | On 11, Feb 2013

So there I was, hesitantly popping the Humanfly record in my CD player and sitting back tentatively, expecting to be blown through the walls of my house through the sheer might of riffage and volume alone. From what I’d read about Humanfly, that seemed to be their modus operandi, bludgeoning doom riffs that sound like a the noise a jet engine makes being remixed by Aphex Twin and Lemmy himself that disintegrate into raucous Sabbath-y boogies. Imagine my surprise, if you will, when the first track begins with deftly strummed guitars, a laidback saunter of a rhythm and… dare I say it, a melancholy melody from singer John Sutcliffe. I was… taken aback to say the very least. And then once I got my head around the presence of melody and subtlety in what I thought was going to be an anvil heavy experience, I started properly listening, and started really liking what I heard. Not only was there melody, and subtlety, but both of them were being incredibly well deployed, building and building the track from its sonorous, dream like intro to its ridiculously exciting, solo-soaked climax. It was an interesting experience to say the very least. So imagine my surprise when this Leeds based quartet managed to take that same structure across the remaining 42 minutes of this six track album (seriously, the longest track is just under fifteen minutes, the shortest is just under five, these guys are not fucking around) and make it a fascinating experience from start to finish. Believe me, I was staggered.
The trick is to take the reliable “quiet – LOUD” formula and mix it up a bit. So in the case of track 2, A Majestic Story, it’s not so much “quiet – LOUD” as it is “quiet – LOUD – quieter-than-the-last-part-but-a-little-bit-louder-than-the-first-part – EVEN LOUDER” and then repeat until the necessary guitar solo wig out of an ending and everyone goes home happy. It would bore even the least discerning of metal heads to tears though, if it wasn’t for the relentless creativity that went into the structure of every track. The aforementioned Majestic Story opens with some portentous sounding organ over a stuttering drum line, following track the Apple That Never Fell kicks off with a buzzing bad trip of a riff that sound like a stoner metal Doors. In both cases the chaos that the songs eventually morph into doesn’t resemble the intro in the slightest, the Apple That Never Falls especially veering into almost tech-metal depths with its jerking riffs and stuttering tempo. Which is to say nothing of the albums centre piece, the dizzyingly complex The Armour Of Science. Which is a fascinating listen, make no mistake, but it’s also the summation of every problem that this album has. It’s fascinating, for sure, but is it worth more than one listen? Not so much.
This is a staggering album to listen to once. Anyone with a passing taste in the heavy stuff should have a cursory listen, but it is a difficult album to love. It’s relentlessly complex, ever shifting, but once you know where the tracks are going; there isn’t much to keep you coming back for more. The songs, dare I say it, are kind of weak, being covered up by the genuinely enviable technical chops of Humanfly. But then again, this is just me. There are probably some hardened metal heads for whom this is the second coming itself. For me personally however, I had a good time, but maybe I should have been blown through the walls on second thoughts.

★★★★★

Will Howard