When a band as beloved and seemingly destined for metal’s top table as Black Peaks splits, the turbulence it leaves in its wake can leave its members in a strange position; they have the kinds of interest and fanbase that can give them an instant foot on the ladder for their next project, but that also means those projects must take their baby steps not in some anonymous Brighton pub in front of the support bands and their mums, but on the stages of festivals and venues most bands won’t ever reach. There’s no room for error, and the pressure can, all too often, be too much to allow the kinds of growth that their original projects made without that glare and attention.
Which is why it’s not much of a surprise that of the projects to have risen from the ashes of Black Peaks (and, in the case of Vower, Palm Reader), none has yet scaled the kinds of heights that Statues and All That Divides so effortlessly scaled. Skin Failure felt like more of a throat-clearing exercise for vocalist Will Gardner, and while the first Every Hell and Vower EPs have been pretty decent, there’s been a definite sense of bands still working out exactly what it is they want to be.
Now, Every Hell are back with their second EP, and for the first time, we might be getting close to the frankly absurd quality levels you might expect from this particular chimerical bombination. Kicking off with Let Me Go, a rumbling bass line and pounding drums soon give way to the kind of soaring, epic chorus that only Will Gardner’s incredible range can allow for. This is frantic, punky, hardcore-inflected alt-metal of the highest calibre. Middle track Bane of the Bear is an almost Mastodon-ian prog freakout that breaks out into a galloping, propulsive jam Mutoid Man would be proud of.
It’s not all gold in them hills, however. It might be a piece of poor sequencing, but second track Catching Thunder doesn’t stand out in quite the same way; its opening too jarring against the previous track, its ending too similar to what follows in a way that almost robs the superior track of its power. And the title track is nothing more than a minute and a half of atmospherics that are a waste of such scant running time.
But the real gem here is the final track, Ironclad, the only truly new track on this release. Here, amidst another galloping riff and a hint of horns, is a track that finally takes off in a way that sends shivers down the spine. It’s not Black Peaks, it’s its very own monster, and it perhaps points the way that maybe, just maybe, Every Hell have what it takes to become more than the legacy that sits in their members’ wakes.