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Internal Void
Unearthed
Southern Lord
With Unearthed, their second album, Maryland¹s Internal Void unearth something most of their cheeched-out contemporaries can¹t seem to touch with a ten-foot hookah: songs. Yeah, sounds crazy, but the new breed of post-Sabbath/post-Trouble/-- hell even post-Sleep doom merchants seem content to merely crunch away at their wannabe-Orange equipment, fuzzboxes and all, cheaply and crudely and, most importantly, without character (that is, if you¹re going to go the route of either or both of the first two adjectives), hoping that a heavy metal thunder of theirs coincides with a chemically-addled vibe of yours to somehow produce a headbang of memorable proportions, song structures be damned. Well, Internal Void can certainly generate a headbang of a considerable proportion, especially when they give a nod to Sab¹s "Children of the Grave" on their chugger "Seek the Truth," but the memorability mainly lies in the tone color of each song, melodies piled high and plentiful atop structures brimming with accessibility yet allowing for a bit of near-improvisational exploration (see the fittingly titled "In a Bit of a Jam" or the mammoth rave-up of "After the Storm"). Compounding the latter element, the quartet exhibit a "what, me worry?" execution vaguely reminiscent of prime Raging Slab, kinda laid-back but definitely still there, sweetly taking their time to cook things up just right. Still, not quite sure how Unearthed is gonna meet most ears, being that it¹s not necessarily the one-dimensional oddball guaranteed to stratify the curious as it is the low-profile, ambivalent sort of record, quiet and confident in its tonnage. A (behind the wall of) sleeper, for sure.
Southern Lord, PO Box 291967, Los Angeles, CA 90029, http://www.southernlord.com
Nathan T. Birk
