Get ready for this one. Sometimes it's hard to quantify what makes an album really turn heads, but whatever it may be... this one has it. Seattle progressive/sludge band Into the Storm bring us another standout release in 2016 with Where the Merfalo Roam. Into the Storm have been recommended for fans of Baroness, Mastodon, and Pelican; but quite honestly for me this feels like the Gojira album we were really wanting this year.
The band states, "We are super excited to release this album as it captures the most accurate representation of seeing us play live we have ever recorded. The concept behind Where the Merfalo Roam is a journey through discontent, oppressive governments, dystopian eras, and the connection between the cycles societies go through. The artwork depicts the mouth of a giant mythical creature that devours chunks of societies with bits of them still stuck against it's teeth and the creatures that are still feasting upon them. Where the Merfalo Roam is a call to a bygone era where great waters covered much of the open the plains and large aquatic mammals grazed, Merfalo. You can still see evidence of this time in the derelict buildings scattered beside the highways of America."
Returning to my comparison with Gojira, I am aware that Where the Merfalo Roam may not have the same level of complexity as the band's early work, but I still argue that it is a more natural progression from L'Enfant Sauvage than Magma's intensely straight-forward rock. In fact, when Into The Storm start ripping things up on the first track, "Truck Van Trailer," I had to check the notes to make sure that it wasn't Joe Duplantier supplying these screams. These guys bring back his former fury without any of the robotic clean vocals. Furthermore, they add a layer gruffness a la Mastodon and will make that extra reach into blackened territory when it suits them.
And we haven't even gotten to the instrumentation yet. These guitars could crush Adamantium. Where the Merfalo Roam presents the perfect balance of earth-shaking, sludgy power chords, reverb-heavy post-metal meandering, and shifting tectonic plates of progressive always building towards an explosive climax. Basically take all of the best elements from the top picks of 2016 in each of these genres and have them painstakingly reconstructed together by Frank Lloyd Wright. Every single track on this album is intensely engrossing, but here are just a few highlights: "Ghostmaker," "I Gotta Get The Bees Outta My Teeth," "Maths," "Wellwisher," and “Maturin” (which contains a brass section in addition to the awesomely noisy guitars).
If you like any of the bands mentioned above, metal music, or hell...music in general, then you should find something to love about Into the Storm. They are heavy enough to do some spinal damage, accessible enough to warrant radio play, and creative enough to deserve attention above the rest of the pack. I was lucky enough to hear the album and type up these words back in July, but I am confident enough about Where the Merfalo Roam to make a bet: come November when this posts I will still be counting it among the best albums of the year. I'm actually glad they are releasing closer to the end of 2016. Hopefully the timing will encourage more people to keep it in mind when forming their own lists. In any case, you are required to listen to this one. Get cracking.