Well, ‘Blackened Shoegaze’ typically walks the fine line between inspired and insipid. As hordes of Deftones wannabes bumble their way through distortion heavy enough to delude their fans into thinking that a barrage of unpleasant and disjointed sound is atmospheric and melancholic, Ba’al roll up their sleeves and show lesser bands in the genre how Post Blackened Shoegaze is done properly.
This is the band’s second release, after 2020’s Ellipsism, and the second release is usually the hardest for a band because they’ve put all their best stuff into their debut, and then, when it’s well received, a band realises: “Wait a minute, we have to do that again??” And this is a post-blackened shoegaze band we’re talking about here, so it’s impressive enough that the band have made it past the Fermi Great Filter of bands. They haven’t just broken up after, say, the drummer got into a fist fight with some part-time promoter in a car park over merch sale percentages, which, in fairness, is the only way the band would be able to get the money for the petrol, Glen’s vodka and black denim they so desperately require.
With the record’s first song, ‘Mother’s Concrete Womb’, Ba’al are proving that lightning can strike twice, and their first record wasn’t just an accidental miracle, with the band being cast into the mass graves of one-and-done metal collectives. This is a group to be taken seriously, and they have something heavy to say. The track lays the foundations for carefully orchestrated rises to be built upon gentle strumming, only to be smashed down with crushing riffages that would put genre leaders Amenra to shame, leaving their listeners trembling with awe as their gasts are left absolutely flabbered.
Ba’al build to bring their listeners up to feelings of almost tentative hope, leaving them there for a few tense and beautifully crafted moments, before finally throwing them to the floor in a crushing post-metal rage. ‘Waxwork Gorgon’ shrieks itself into play; this track hits heavier than your parents’ divorce when you were thirteen. Ba’al bounce between world standard shrieks over crushing doom and then Black Country, New Road styled vocals before ending in soft and gentle strumming. This feels like receiving a loving, tender embrace after doing a few rounds with cocaine era Mike Tyson.
Next up, ‘Floral Cairn’ leaves no room for contemplative rest. Here, Ba’al explodes into their more extreme side of things, embracing a turgid flavour of death metal and precise blackened riffs that sound cleaner than a straight-edge band’s urine samples. The song ends with an emotional breakdown of clean vocals and absolutely inspired sound mixing as riffs battle with one another in tennis match-like panning.
About halfway through the album, now is ‘Well of Sorrow’, which is probably not an appropriate enough description of the raw vehemence conveyed within this monster track, clocking in at eleven minutes long. More like the Pit of Despair as vocalist Joe Stamps wails out the track like he’s just had to have his childhood dog put down.
‘The Ocean That Fills the World’ has probably the most trve blackened sound of the record, for a time, before the listeners might find themselves in a Devin Townsend ambient album, luring them into a false sense of security before going for the jugular in an attack of excellent post blackened savagery culminating in an ending with somber funeral tones and foreboding air raid sirens which will leave their listeners breathless and wrought with anxiety.
Like the light of a dying star, ‘Legaslov’ ends the bipolar journey that Ba’al have taken their listeners on with an almost sampling of Opeth style prog juxtaposed by hardcore beatdowns with bluesy guitar work following along in a perfectly blended but wholly original post sound.
In summary, The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here is a monumental album. This band is poised to explode with this release and may be the best thing to come out of Sheffield since Sean Bean. The only thing certain about this band is that coming up with a follow-up better than The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here is going to be a right Ba’al-ache.