(written by Islander)
The British metal band Ba’al picked a name for their new album that will make most people’s scanning eyes stop in their tracks when they see it: The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here. Your hurrying brain might quickly interpret it one way (the wrong way) and then pause (if it’s not rushing too fast) to realize it says “Here“, not “Hell“.
The title is clever, but it’s also meaningful. The band explain:
“The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here reflects on growing up in a city like our home of Sheffield; the contrast between bleak, grey industrial sprawl and the beauty of nature that surrounds and often overlaps with it. It touches on mental health, substance abuse, suicide, grief and existential dread.”
“Here“, where we are, can be hellish. Human beings have always imagined the torments of Hell based on what they know and have seen of ourselves and our fellow travelers on our spinning orb. It may be that we have also imagined the glories of Heaven based on the glories of Here too.
How Ba’al have used their music to render the grey and the green, the scars and the sublime, will be revealed in full today through our premiere of their new album.
The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here, Ba’al‘s second full-length and fifth record overall, will be released tomorrow (July 18th) by the UK label Road To Masochist. The label overviews the music with these words:
Blending the weight of doom, the ferocity of black metal, and the haunting beauty of atmospheric soundscapes, Ba’al weaves together elements of sludge, ambient, post-rock, and noise. The result is a dynamic and emotionally charged sonic experience — equal parts devastating and transcendent.
As that quote correctly suggests, even though it doesn’t completely touch upon all the music’s many genre ingredients, the musical terrain that the album traverses feels both physical and emotional, a crossing through both landscapes and moods, an investigation of the Hells that are Here and the sublime, and the fine lines that often separate the two, between what we have made and what still surrounds us that was here before we came.
The opening song “Mother’s Concrete Womb” is such a crossing all by itself. Its instrumental overture, a work of strings and piano, is soft and mesmerizing, meditative and melancholy. But the music also powerfully pounds, sears, and sweeps. A piercing lead guitar is the song’s yearning emotional heart; shattering shrieks and guttural roars are the heart of its ugliness and pain.
The constantly changing rhythms in the song are bone-smashing in their heaviness, and the rhythm section are deployed to good effect when Ba’al want to slug the hell out of listeners and develop the musical terrain that’s most bleak. On the other end of the scale, the whirring guitars and blazing synths manifest both pain and splendor, a twining that repeatedly captures much of the album’s intent.
Just this one song is remarkably multi-faceted, including facets that are outside the admittedly vast boundaries of metal. It incorporates acoustic picking and seductively shimmering keys, proggy rocking beats and moody singing that rises in torment, as well as hulking stomps and blistering tremolo’d wildfires that expand into panoramas of flame. The array of instrumentation and tones is itself extravagant.
That opener is about 13 minutes long, but so dynamic and so enthralling in all its phases that we suspect no one will be counting the minutes. The album includes two more ultra-long songs — “Well of Sorrows” and “The Ocean That Fills A Wound”. Even the three shortest songs are only short by comparison, each of them hovering around the 8-minute mark. Ba’al have a lot to say, and lots of different ways to say it.
As already previewed by the long opening song, in the others Ba’al range far and wide in their speed, volume, and the variety of sensations and genre ingredients. They make music that’s both elegant and brutish, refined and ravaging. They make earthquakes, deploy battering rams, and erect cold towering sonic edifices, but they also create phases of wistfulness and wonder.
The lead guitar is a perpetually soulful presence, and the singing is distinctive and also soulful; the harsh vocals are terrors. The drumming and bass-work are as variable as everything else, not just in speed and decibels but in the array of not-metal influences that become manifest, just as they do in the performances by guitarists and keyboardist.
It’s worth repeating and re-emphasizing that the array of tones is enormous, across a spectrum from crystalline and vaporous to boulder-heavy. Sometimes Ba’al get “stripped-down”, but most of the time, whether the music is loud or soft, hurtling or contemplative, dissonant and scarring or beautifully melodious, the sonic textures are elaborate and beautifully integrated.
As displayed on The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here, Ba’al‘s ambitions are enormous, and they ask a lot of time and attention from listeners. But there’s a big payoff: All the performers are excellent, the songcraft and the production display intense attention to detail, and the music in all its peaks and troughs, all its ebbs and flows, all its traversing through bleak urban canyons and green shades, all its heart-sinking and heart-lifting moods, is thoroughly captivating.
BA’AL:
Nick Gosling – Guitars
Chris Mole – Guitars
Luke Rutter – Drums
Richard Spencer – Bass
Joe Stamps – Vocals
Richard Spencer also performed violin and viola for the album, and Alex Marshall performed on cello. The music also includes synths by Graham McElearney, French horn by Tom Wright, and glockenspiel by Nick Gosling.
The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here was produced by Joe Clayton (Conjurer, Dawnwalker) and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. It will be released by Road To Masochist on translucent amber vinyl, black vinyl, and digipack CD, with t-shirt bundles, and it’s available digitally from the band. It features artwork and layout by True Spilt Milk Designs.
PRE-ORDER:
https://roadtomasochist.co.uk/store/ba-al
BA’AL:
https://baalbanduk.bandcamp.com/music
https://www.facebook/baalbanduk
https://www.instagram/baalbanduk
ROAD TO MASOCHIST:
https://www.roadtomasochist.co.uk/store
https://www.facebook/roadtomascochist
https://www.instagram/road_to_masochist