In the fall of 2019, I attended Post Fest in Indianapolis. At one point, my friend Chris and I had walked down to the burger joint down the street from the theater for a lunch break—and reprieve from the often-punishing levels of sound from the bands, many of which seemed to bleed into one another in my perception.
Walking back into the theater after lunch, I was met by one of the most entrancing sets I’ve ever heard. The band was heavy, no doubt, but the songs themselves weren’t crushing. There was a brightness to the band that bordered on dream pop. I had missed the band’s introduction, so I stood dumbfounded and watched in complete ignorance. Midway through the set, one of the band members pointed out their merch booth, and I practically sprinted, picking up a copy of their debut record The Fall without hesitation.
In the years since, that album has never left my heavy rotation. My only gripe with the album was that there wasn’t enough of it—its nine tracks concluded in a mere thirty-six minutes. Last year’s Awake EP helped soothe the itch a little, but overall it was a temporary balm. What I really wanted was another full length.
That eagerly-awaited disc is called The Shape of Everything, recorded remotely throughout the pandemic. And now that I’m listening to it, it’s every bit as satisfying as I hoped it would be. The formula is largely untouched (thankfully): the rhythm section lumbers through thick, heavy riffs while light vocals, ambient guitars, and synthesizers float effortlessly above them. It’s the kind of music that both fans of Neurosis and My Bloody Valentine alike will find something to love about.
But this time around, the heavy bits have a bit more weight to them. The instrumental coda in “Shape” for instance could almost pass for radio metal if it the verses it preceded were a bit more braindead and crotch thrusting. The intro of “Heart Attack” is even heavier, its fuzzy bass line persisting through ambient verses.
And yet, for all this added heft, SOM sounds as weightless as ever. Will Benoit’s vocals are delivered so airily it’s hard to believe the voice is attached to a human body. Throughout the disc, the guitars are a bit less subtle with their effects usage, pitch shifters and modulation pedals are now used alongside the layers of delay, reverb, and fuzz. The lead guitar on single “Animals” uses a Digitech Whammy (or similar device) to approximate a digital twelve-string, a la Radiohead’s “My Iron Lung.” The fifth track “Clocks” uses the same pedal to create a Tom Morello-esque octave slide.
But at the end of the day, The Shape of Everything suffers from the same fatal flaw as its predecessor: there isn’t enough of it. The eight tracks seem to breeze by in an all-too-brief thirty-five minutes. I’ve waited over two years for this album, and I already need more. In the meantime, I guess I’ll just spin it on repeat.
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