Lands

Emperor

Written by: MGA on 20/02/2012 11:23:06

How you feel about Lands depends on two things. First, there's the obvious: how your ears feel while you listen to them, but the second is a little less common. Hyped and promoted as a five-piece post metal band, the music Lands produces on "Emperor", their latest EP, sonically stands miles away from the musical ground covered by their post metal contemporaries.

While groups like Isis, Rosetta, and Cult of Luna all have a sound with evolutionary roots in sludge metal, Lands plays a post metal that draws much more heavily on post hardcore. The difference is striking. Post metal has always been a bit of a caricature of itself: slow build ups, loud moments accented by quiet moments and vice versa, a mysterious nuance between the notes, etc. Perhaps this is why Lands is so jarring if you go into it with the idea that it's going to be traditional post metal. While the loud/quiet dynamic does exist, "Emperor" lays every card Lands has on the table in post-hardcore fashion. The result is a simultaneously admirable, uneven, and humorous.

"King of Nothing" sums things up best. It beings with some sort of spoken word/poetry, with soft drumming and light guitar in the background. It sounds like the musings of a 16-year-old emo kid: "Why we fought, we did not know/while everything crumbled above, and our hearts fell below." It's like one big two minute practical joke, as if Hawthorne Heights had suddenly decided to create a post metal band. And then bam, in comes the mandatory heavy which fades in and out over the next six minutes of the track.

To be blunt, if you're really into hardcore and post hardcore but you have a hankering to expand your musical palette, give Lands a whirl. If you have the patience to tolerate eight minute tracks made up of ambiance and hardcore aggression, Lands is for you. But if you're the type that's eagerly waiting for the next Isis live album, "Emperor" will be a confusing venture sure to end in displeasure.

6

Download: Emperor, Love is the Devil
For The Fans Of: Thrice, From First to Last, Alexisonfire
Listen: Facebook

Release Date 22.10.2011
Self-released

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