(Andy Synn travels deep into The Great White Nothing… and likes what he finds there)
Sometimes it seems like we spend most of our time here at NCS playing catch-up.
And the reason for this is… well, we kind of do.
After all, there’s just so much released each week/month/year that it’s impossible to stay on top, or ahead, of it all, and often by the time we find something that really grabs our attention (and/or find the time to actually get some writing done in between all our other commitments) the release date for whatever it is has already passed.
Case in point, the debut album from Belgian Post-Metal/Post-Hardcore/Post-Black quintet The Great White Nothing was actually released on the 31st of August, but I didn’t stumble across it until over a week later, and then didn’t find time to sit down and properly pen a few thoughts about it until now.
But, as the unofficial mantra of this site goes, better late than never… right?
Not a strict concept album, per se, but definitely a conceptual album, Passage I is – by the band’s own admission – inspired by the explorations (and isolation) of 20th century Antarctic pioneers, leading to a pleasing symmetry between the bleak, at times almost ascetic, beauty of their sound and the evocative grandeur (and implied desolation) of their chosen name.
Straight away you’ll encounter most of the chief elements of the band’s sound during outstanding opener “Everything, Forever”, whose moody, minimalist synths set the stage for a procession of gargantuan, gloom-shrouded chords and icy melodies which, in turn, are then swept away by a blizzard of surging blastbeats, seething guitars, and keening melodic notes, with the harrowing harsh vocals and crooning cleans ceding the stage to one another (and occasionally sharing the spotlight) as and when necessary as the song begins.
The keen-eared will doubtless detect elements of, and influences from, the proggy moodscapes of mid-00s era Thrice alongside a hefty helping of Amenra‘s doomy dynamic, as well as some similarities to the likes of now defunct Post-Black stargazers Vattnet Viskar (who, if memory serves, went on to become Astronoid, with whom tracks like “St George” and “Melancholia” also share more than a few elements) and Post-/Black/Hardcore collective A Secret Revealed (with perhaps, in some of the more vibrant vocal melodies during the likes of “Dolores” and “Eulogy for the Sea”, a touch of the effortless emotional eloquence of Alexisonfire too).
But the greatest strength of The Great White Nothing here is not just their knack for picking and choosing all the best bits from a rich palette of influences and inspirations – though they’ve definitely seized upon a sound here which, despite being their first release, already stands out as incredibly striking and distinctive – but for combining them in such a way that not only do they go a great way towards making them their own but they also keep the listener guessing due to the constantly shifting, yet endlessly captivating, songwriting on display.
In particular, the longer and more involved compositions – especially early highlight “The Sands of Hattin”, the aforementioned (and absolutely massive) “Eulogy for the Sea”, and the climactic “There, Where the Waves Are Still” – provide an even more in-depth and impressive showcase of what the band are capable of, moving seamlessly from calm to chaos, haunting to harrowing, poignant to punishing, with a sense of fluid, organic momentum, with the juxtaposition between some of the record’s sublimely sombre moments and some of the most stunningly heavy passages on the entire album (if you’re looking for blazing blastbeats and humongous, heaving riffs you won’t be disappointed) ultimately making the entire thing even more intense and impactful.
Make no mistake… mature, confident, introspective, and viscerally powerful on both a musical and emotional level… this is as good a debut album as any you’re likely to hear this year