Keelhaul - Triumphant Return to Obscurity

(Hydrahead Industries, 2009)

Reviewed by Dave.

http://www.myspace.com/mykeelhaul

Well, I'm back again with another lost gem from the lands of “music too technical for your standard AC/DC tailgate partier,” and metal musicianship otherwise buried under the truckload of generic, over produced, formulaic, blast beat, corpse-paint trash. So these guys are from Cleveland, they are too old, too sober, too musically educated for the motorcycle/Maiden crowd and when played on the average metal fan's overpowering stereo, their music will melt your face. This is Keelhaul.

I was first introduced to the band by a friend who had been a solid member of the Midwest rock community for over ten years, opening shows for such '90s power houses like The Jesus Lizard, Hammerhead, and Unsane. There is a certain brutally raw, yet humanly unique character to bands from the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions of the country that I have always really liked. Being hidden away from the overarching influences of the coastal arts communities has a positive influence on these bands in my opinion. Anyway, I was going to start playing bass with my friend in a dual bass trio called Members of the Press. I had to learn several songs from an album previously released by my friend Randy under the Members moniker. The release was recorded with a session drummer several years prior who was active in the above mentioned band Keelhaul. When I put on the CD I was blown away by the energy and innovative style of the drummer. Randy burned me a mix CD of Keelhaul's material and again I was crushed by the energy and innovative vibe of the entire recording.

So from there, I picked up the double LP, put out by Hydrahead Industries. I think Keelhaul's Triumphant Return To Obscurity is my favorite album of the year, even though it came out in 2009.... The first thing I noticed about this album is that the time signatures continuously change in really fluid ways. Unlike most mathy bands, the songs never really get too sonically abrasive or herky jerky. There is always a solid pulse in the rhythm structures. The band's timing and musical concepts can become pretty challenging, but the guitarists maintain solid, classic, thrash chord progressions, never wandering too far into avant garde or experimental jazzy directions. It is very technical, heavy music, but it never gets really noodly or too frantic.

This is a rhythm guitarists album, some might lump it in with grindcore oriented bands, but speed is not a major focus of the record. To me, a complex powerful riff defines a great metal song. I guess that's why I like this album so much. It's not very catchy but there are so many interesting twists and turns in the song structures that I generally stop anything else I might be doing to listen to the intense timing and creative chord changes throughout the record. I started out playing rhythm guitar, slowly working my way through the tangled chord progressions of early Melvins’ albums and Master of Puppets, to me this is the defining difference between really heavy bands and hard rock.

In my opinion, it is never easy to put the sound of a good creative band into written words. I feel these guys are working with strength and heaviness like an instrumental Pantera playing in a much more progressive form without the flashy guitar solos. Another good comparison could made to a slightly more musical take on the concepts put forth on Napalm Death's mid-nineties release Diatribes. The album is a fire breathing beast of musical intellect and power.

If you are into high-flying lead guitar spazz outs or heroic vocal refrains, this might not be the album for you. If you like your metal to snarl like a wolf with rabies, you might want to check it out.

Using Jimmy's time honored scale of 1 to 10 minutes in reference to the auto erotic pleasure produced by this album I'll give 9 minutes.