by Andy Ciardella (@fkathiccs)
I’m listening to this album staring at a gigantic Metz poster on my wall, which came with the vinyl edition of their 2015 sophomore effort II. It’s a fuzzy, monochrome, and cryptically fascinating image of a shadowy human figure walking through a grainy paved lot filled with soaring bent lines gracing it. Plastered just above the image is their logo, which reads the group’s name in extremely bold capital letters. This is a consistent visual aesthetic the group have adopted since their beginning, which fittingly reflects the direction of their music as well. Metz haven’t been through many stylistic changes throughout the years, roaring with brash post-punk for more than a decade, but on their latest, Atlas Vending, we get their longest, darkest, and most evenly paced effort to date.
By evenly paced, I mean these songs take their time. On most tracks, the group is trading their signature two to three minute thrash party for a slower burning sludge. Just take the first single “A Boat To Drown In” for example. Not only is it the longest song on the record, but it’s also the longest song in their studio album discography. For about three minutes, this song plays out like a normal Metz tune, with barbed wire vocals and cloudy guitars laying just above gunshot drums. Right after that three minutes, we get a tense and hypnotic instrumental ending that continues this driving noise until it punches out after the seven and a half minute mark. This is not a very new thing for the group as they ended their last record Strange Peace similarly, but that album’s ending was akin to a grand explosion whereas Atlas Vending’s ending is a psychotic build towards an inward spiral.
On many other songs we get this similar feeling of the band’s candle burning slower but equally as bright as their other records. The opener “Pulse” is self-explanatory, as a throbbing kick drum retains a steady pulse for the whole four minutes of the song. The guitars on this track add an extra element of paranoia, slimily screeching chords that sound like they want to start fist-fighting each other. Another song that perfectly exemplifies this is “The Mirror,” which exhibits some of the best uses of dynamics on the album. The raw mixture of rapidly moving drums, twisted melodic guitar riffs, grounded bass, and manic vocals perfectly show that the group has not lost their exciting demeanor even when crafting longer songs.
The slightly more drawn out and industrial sound on this reminds me of Daughters. Yes, the Rhode Island grindcore-turned-noise rock group whose seminal 2018 album You Won’t Get What You Want was an important landmark in 2010s underground rock. Metz bassist Chris Slorach ended up briefly touring as a replacement bassist for Daughters during a 2019 tour, which makes sense considering both bands love making ear-bleeding harshness sound beautiful. Whether or not this touring stint had an influence on Atlas Vending, I can feel at least a little bit of Daughters’ ambitious noise rock sound in this new record.
As always, I love it when bands try new things, which is something I’d like to see Metz do in the future. Embracing the industrial and experimental tendencies they have would be awesome to see from a band not far off from a decade since their debut. The best thing about Atlas Vending is that Metz have still remained as intense as ever, delivering some of their most menacing songs to date.