sertraline-thestreetlightwasallweneeded

Review from Metal Temple

Fri, 26 Feb 2021 21:02:49 +0100

From: Metal Temple

Published: February 16, 2021

(Post) Black Metal of pithy, atmospheric, and emotional depth, SERTRALINE of Buffalo NY released their first full release entitled “The Street Was All We Needed” in January of 2020; previous releases include the May 2017 E.P. release entitled “Shade”; the July 2019 release entitled “From Both Our Hands”; and the November 2019 release entitled “These Mills Are Oceans”. “Bloom” - the initial album track opens as an approximate two minute introduction to the release. Listeners hear what I imagine is amplified feedback with extensive reverb.

“Azalia” - the second album track opens with a slow beat and slow bass line–while guitars quickly strum unmuted strings. Guitars, amidst the production open more fully to allow the distortion to simply ring - and this is enjoyable. Extensive “open ring” of distorted strings resounds within this song–and the metal head in me is on my metaphorical knees in homage. This tune is never fast - it’s not necessary, but this song is definitely a treat for those who simply love the sustaining sound of a fully distorted guitar. This song is probably the closest to traditional Black Metal that I find on the album.

“Haze” - the third album track is an extremely short tune that opens with massive feedback perhaps together with keyboards. “Shade“ - the fourth album track opens with a full thrash eighth note drum beat pattern on the snare - opposed by the alternate subdivided beat upon the bass drum. Rhythm patterns of the guitars strum quickly. Shortly after the first moment - the rhythmic pulse slows while guitars play open (unmuted) distorted chords with nicely disturbing bouts of dissonance. Much of which is a transfiguration of the minor third pivoting between its mediant role and becoming the root note of the next chord within the immediate progression. This stops at about four minutes - when all sound stops save clean (chorused) guitars. Drums and bass enter beneath the guitar arpeggiation. Distorted rhythm guitars are added as are drums - all played at slower tempos but the intensity of this builds through a progressive crescendo - while the drums grow increasingly furious.

“Hounds Of Avarice” - the fifth album track opens with collective, amplified distorted guitar feedback, while cymbals more ceremoniously than ferociously roll and subtly crash. At about one minute - keyboards with pedal tones enter, doubled by the bass for the entrance of undistorted higher guitar strings. One guitar double picks a slow melodic melody. Just after three minutes, heavily distorted rhythm guitars, together with cymbal crashes, enter as though to finalize the passing of an unknown but monumental grandeur. This passing moment endures for perhaps one and one half minutes–as collective amplified (distorted) feedback sustains; the song, as previously mentioned at about the first minute resumes until the song ends - not without an awesome guitar sound.

“The Knowledge Of Trees” - the sixth album track opens with distorted rhythm guitars strumming unmuted resounding strings with ninth & suspended chords–pending resolutions or not; while drums beat feverishly, but not speedily, around the toms: this happily endures a bit longer than one minute–happily because I’m into it. Drums play an eight note thrash style of snare to divide the beat. Before three minutes - the fury abates for an approximate thirty second bout into a descending minor progression, before resuming the former thrash style fury. At fifteen seconds before the passing of four minutes - all fury again abates and the introduction is again presented but now the drums are more subdued. I am truly enjoying the sound of the rhythm guitars here–as described in the beginning of this paragraph.

“Entwined” - the seventh album track opens with a slow tempo & drive and pleasantly mixes a heavy dose of bass into the overall sonority. A hell chorus via keyboards prevails the harmonic progression for about the first ninety seconds. The song then enters into a tree / four time feel that Ken Culton incorporates rests within triplets (YES - Thank YOU) along the snare patterns to accentuate a syncopated choppy fee–creating a beat that bursts with pops-n’chops and I’m-a’ diggin’ it; he mixes this snare pattern well with his use of the bass drum - this is real music. Rhythm guitars have both subtle double picking along higher strings - and a nice mix of distorted power chords along the lower strings. At about three thirty seconds Ken Culton has a rhythmic conversation with Jack Roman - and I know I shouldn’t eavesdrop but they’ve truly piqued my interest. While they didn’t directly call my name I feel as though I hear them; and when you hear them, you’ll feel they’ve called you too. Great stuff!

“Eyes As Tableau” - the eighth album track begins with a faster tempo, but not an aggressive beat. Jason Roman’s bass line is a subtle mix of rhythm & melody - and perfectly compliments Ken Culton’s easy laid back beat–still the song hops. Guitar strings, presumably plucked with a pick, add the more somber notions of the morose–and do so without notable amounts of distortion, save other electronic effects like that of the Chorus. The band classifies as post black metal - and the only notions that might seem in any way like Black Metal would be the morose connotation of the guitar use. Just before one minute and a quarter - the aggression progression enters - which is a natural minor descent from the top of the scale. The song ends without guitar distortion.

“Their Cities” - the ninth album track opens with slightly distorted open high strings (does this reminisce BRUCE SPRINGSTEIN?) “To the hum of the streetlights we danced / Under the viaduct we sang all night / To all the factories we would run and scream / And to the convenient store parking lots where we'd vow to see better days.” At about a quarter past three minutes the song moves along lightly with a three feel, though not a scherzo, as Ken Culton plays a light dynamic appropriately accentuated snare pattern to perfectly capture the mood of a farewell - how loudly (not lewdly) sings the byronic verse in silence! To clarify - this text of LORD BYRON is not used, but the growling vocals amidst this teary-eyed recollective farewell prompted me to digress accordingly.

“And now I'm in the world alone, Upon the wide, wide sea; But why should I for others groan, When none will sigh for me? Perchance my dog will whine in vain Till fed by stranger hands; But long ere I come back again He'd tear me where he stands”.

Shortly after four minutes pass - a sequence of four measures of four / four time pass; the first three beats of each measure are filled by a sixteenth note subdivision that pounds the floor tom to the beat - to segue into a thrash style snare beat pattern. This intensity subdues again at about five minutes thirty seconds for about thirty seconds of wistful recollection. The tempo picks up again–and again Ken Culton adds interesting rhythmic variation patterns that are better heard by the eardrums than read.

“Prague” - the tenth and final album track begins on the root note on guitar & bass with vocals “aaahhh” (without auditory rearticulations) on the dominant (fifth scale degree - or as expressed through solfege symbol “Sol”). By about fifty seconds, the bass rearticulates this quickly–and I believe the bass to be plucked–and this more percussive sorority is relevant - enhancing the sound like an approaching herd of buffalo. By thirty seconds - a cymbal rolls crescendos–adding to the aura of something wicked this way comes. Vocals enhanced with reverb begin at about fifty seconds “Hanging from complacence / Seeking a renascent heart / I shall wander far from everyone / My wife, my kid, my home.” At about one minute fifty seconds drums add a slow subdued beat while undistorted guitars convey a somber melody–replete with melodic chromaticism that enhances the somber tone. At about four minutes, rhythm guitars enter while Jason Roman’s Bass further divides the beat into a non-successive sixteenth note subdivision. At about four minutes forty five seconds, drums begin to play trashy style eighth note successive divisions of the beat on the snare. At about five minutes twenty five seconds - rhythm guitars lead the sonorous mix with awfully pleasant subtle bouts of dissonance.

Rating: 10/10

Reviewed by: Barbie Rose

Review from Ave Noctum

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 21:20:35 +0100

From: Ave Noctum

Published: February 1, 2021

Original Link

Post black metal is something that may well be looked at as taking the real thing and diluting it, which is very much what one does with their life if they take drugs such as Sertraline to keep them sane and ticking over. With the crazy world out there, it is something that more and more of us rely on, the drugs if not the music, although that itself has grown increasingly in popularity too due to bands such as Agalloch, Deafheaven, Alcest & Harakiri For The Sky to name just a few. Lurking in the underground but not new to us are sextet Sertraline from Buffalo New York. So far, they have 3 EP’s to their name, a couple of them have been reviewed here. At first looking at the striking black and white photography of ‘The Streetlight Was All We Needed, I naturally thought we had arrived at their debut album. That’s not the case however and what we have is actually a collection of these three EP’s, which makes this the perfect anthology for those who want to explore the bands past efforts before they (hopefully) get round to releasing what I thought this was in the 1st place.

There’s no denying on listening to this that Sertraline have grown on me. Having never heard their ‘Shade’ EP from 2017 I was struck by the maturity of the band, no doubt helped by four of the players having previously been in Where She Wept and the others all having been in other outfits. It seems there is a definite synergy between them with ideas co-ordinated around their vision be that the shimmering build-up the instrumental (Bloom) and (Haze) and the ‘beautiful poison’ of main tracks such as ‘Azalea’ themselves. Yep, it could be looked on as flowery compared to raw black metal itself and the genesis of the 2nd wave of things but it is not without some massive surges and gallops that can be quite breath-taking and explosive and the obvious guttural growls of vocalist Tom. With no less than 3 guitarists playing in the band, the sound is dense and for a 1st EP the production sparkles and alternately rocks with the heavy ballast of the faster parts found on Shade where the “flowers and sunshine” (are) “lost in its haze” that haze being a particularly meaty salvo of battering drums. This is the blackness but to me the more gentile sections of this form of music derives more from post punk and Indie music, shoegaze et al and it is those of us who grew up during the wisdom of John Peel, Annie Nightingale & Janice Long who are the true and established audience for this particular sub-genre rather than the younger advocates of true Norwegian Black Metal! Peely would have loved this track make no mistake and it’s a pleasure losing oneself in its meandering 9-minute flow.

We move forward a couple of years to the ‘From Both Our Hands’ EP of July 19. I guess I had listened to this the once before sending on for review but there is a certain familiarity about it. We float on the guitar textures that stem from bands such as Levitation through to the Gothic flow of Fields Of The Nephilim a band I cited on the 3rd EP too, the hoary and rolling drums are particularly impressive as is the ambient breakdown the track filters into before a final mad dash of speed and extremity. This carries neatly into the thundering ‘The Knowledge Of Trees’ and sees the band pulling out the stops, far from a sappy track indeed. However, it is ‘Entwined’ for me that really stands out due to the melody at start and one that is entwined around the track… I’m sure it is a big coincidence unless band members are closet fans of gut-munching Italian cinema but there is more than a bit of Roberto Donati’s Cannibal Ferox theme about it. Once that idea got under my skin there was simply no shifting it and due to this it’s an incredibly evocative track for me.

Obviously on a roll it was just a few months later Sertraline released 3rd EP ‘These Mills Are Oceans’ in Nov 2019. The bass groove reminds of The Eden House and takes me into their gothic world at first before heaviness and forceful growls are unleashed The melody is incredibly strong and a dark progressive flow adds defining texture. There’s plenty of power here and my previous times listening to this come rushing back like the adrenaline surge it delivers. Not really wanting to repeat myself on previous thoughts one thing that has struck is the combined weight of putting everything together here has done the band no ill wind and it adds an extra mark to my score of the single EP in the process. I am definitely keen to hear new material now and hope that the band have managed to work on it in lockdown, which cant be easiest of tasks with 6 of them. Consider me waiting patiently.

Rating:8/10

Reviewed by: Pete Woods

Review from The Sleeping Shaman

Wed, 20 Jan 2021 19:42:55 +0100

From: The Sleeping Shaman

Published: January 20, 2021

Original Link

It’s fair to say straight away that Sertraline know how to do melancholy, in fact it’s the most defining feature of their sound. With five of their six members having been part of US death-doom stalwarts Where She Wept, their new incarnation as a blackgaze outfit still has many traits of the gothic doom atmosphere that defined their previous sound.

Sertraline ‘The Streetlight Was All We Needed’

Across three EPs Sertraline have delved deeper into the black metal domain, and have now collected these EPs together in the compilation album The Streetlight Was All We Needed. Understandably it doesn’t quite have the same flow a traditional full-length album might aim for, but this is still a magnificent collection of songs that show Sertraline‘s fantastic development into a new style.

The first four tracks of the album make up their 2017 EP Shade, and show a group clearly exploring the potential of their new sound. It consists of two full tracks alongside the atmospheric intro (BLOOM) and the spacey interlude (HAZE).

The first track proper, Azalea, begins with the kind of opening movement that could easily fit on a Paradise Lost track as it could on a Wolves In The Throne Room one. The deep acidic vocals definitely indicate their death-doom leanings, but the track also features layers of swirling guitars that entrench a certain mystical ambience to the whole piece. The title track Shade begins in typical blackgaze fashion with incessant drumming and melancholic chords crashing against wailing guitar leads. The band offer plenty of dynamics with the track breaking into softer moments of gloomy introspection, before hurtling back into the depressive walls of sound.

The next three tracks come from the 2019 EP From Both Our Hands, and it’s quickly evident how much the band developed in the intermediate years. Hounds Of Avarice spends most of its opening leg in a wonderfully intricate mix of melancholic arpeggios and fervent chords. For its second half it goes into full-on black metal mode with minimalistic tremolo and blast beat riffs that manage to combine raw ferocity and doomy power all in one.

The Knowledge Of Trees opens with some Liturgy style tremolo riffing and a thumping drum solo before breaking into more blast beats and tremolo riffs. It engulfs you almost completely, occasionally cutting into the mire with Deafheaven style breaks that serve to increase the energy each time, pulling and pushing the tempo and the tension brilliantly.

Entwined sees a return to more doomy territory at first, the three guitars and bass working perfectly together to provide a slow and mournful Fen style opening passage. Things soon move into blackgaze territory with an Alcest inspired movement of ethereal melodies. A quieter section then segues seamlessly into a groovy passage with some funky bass and exceptionally animated drumming that offers a very new element to the blackgaze sound. Things build towards a vociferous crescendo with a loose energy that touches towards post-hardcore territory.

The third set of tracks come from the EP These Mills Are Oceans, also released in 2019. It’s clear there’s a closeness between these two EPs because the energy of Entwined is immediately brought over into Eyes As Tableau. Its verses of reverberating staccato guitars, slick basslines and solid beats are held in contrast to the blackgaze choruses that echo once again with heavy vibes of Alcest.

Their Cities sounds as if Thursday had replaced Geoff Rickly with Aaron Stainthorpe, and is definitely the most well-written and well-rounded track on the record. It flows between the soft and heavy parts with tremendous craft and vision, maintaining the melodic tone that was set in its very first moments. The final track, Prague, opens with a slightly noisy ambient section coupled with cavernous vocals that add an air of black metal trepidation. Soon though we’re back into melancholic territory, with clean spoken word vocals and vibrant death growls leading another Alcest style movement of exquisite life-affirming melodies that close out the record brilliantly.

Across this near hour long collection there is a highly enjoyable line of progression. From the early tracks, which still maintain much of the band’s previous gloomy death-doom incarnation, through to the incredibly melancholic blackgaze sound develop in later tracks. Whilst theyhaven’t offered anything revolutionary to the blackgaze sound yet, there’s huge potential in the triple guitar wall of noise, the death growl vocals and the outstanding drumming for Sertraline to soon be at the forefront of the blackgaze genre.

There’s an element of sound saturation that appears on repeat listens, and on balance I feel that these three EPs still work best as individual records. However, this collection acts as a wonderful introduction to Sertraline, and as someone completely new to them it has definitely won me over.

Reviewed by: Will J

Review from Metal Addicts

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 18:14:11 +0100

From: Metal Addicts

Published: January 13, 2021

Original Link

If the new ways of Metal nowadays sometimes astonish me, a guy that follows all the plots that happen in it, I wonder my dear common fan of Metal that has been away for a while and listen to all this we have here in Sertraline “The Streetlight Was All We Needed,” a retrospective album of the three EPs the band has released throughout the years. It’s no secret here that this happened to me when I started to review album for this wondrous page. I got astonished with what I heard and knew. The melts and mixes bands are making are simply astonishing to the ears of someone who’s used to classic Metal. When it comes to this album I guess the surprese is bigger due to the contrast of the gutural and anguished voice with the calm and cool instrumental which, by the way, in my opinion reinforces the doom atmosphere.

The uncanny starts with the dualistic – to say the least – name of the album “The Streetlight Was All We Needed.” As we all know the light is something all shadow followers avoid. The streetlight even more. On the other hand, if we think it straight, the ones who want redemption look for the light. So, I guess Sertraline are a band that look for redemption with the release of this compilation – retrospective – of three EPs. And how the music in here? I confess that it beats me because I feel divided with it. The contrast inside it is the thing that attracts me the most. This kind of vocals is always something very powerfull and it gets even more powerfull when compared with the intimistic ands moody instrumentals. Let’s take the last track “Prague,” for instance. Instrumental seem to be out of the theme of the song, I mean, they are kind of not related at all with the song. They are so intimistic that this feeling stands until the end of the song. In fact, this is the most amazing of it. It is a completely uncommon way of making music. Especially Metal music that have all its rules and standards. Sertraline proved to be out of them. Suddenly in the forth minute or so the song speeds it up and gets eve more out. What sounded out now gets in, if you ask me. The atmospheric mood is the tone of the album from the beginning with “(BLOOM)” the track that presents the band to the fan. “Azalea” follows it and in a way gets its main idea from the flower it is named after. It’s gentle and strong at the same time with a beauty that goes beyond.

“The Streetlight Was All We Needed” an album that surprises.

Reviewed by: Poleto