willsdissolve-thanof-reviews

Review from Subterraneo Webzine

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 18:33:44 +0100

From: Subterraneo Webzine

Published: October 28, 2019

¿Habéis oído alguna vez la expresión «tener buen ojo»? Yo normalmente la relaciono con personas que saben distinguir y escoger lo mejor de varias opciones. Este tipo de personas suele encontrarse entre aquellas que tienen profesiones en las que se evalúan bien cierto tipo de cosas para calcular su valor o en aquellas que tienen una afición, normalmente relacionada con el tema coleccionismo. En mi caso creo que puedo decir que tengo un buen ojo a la hora de investigar y decidir en qué bandas invertir mi tiempo. Mi ojo, como es costumbre, no suele fallarme, y se ve que el de WILLS DISSOLVE tampoco, ya que saben de qué fuentes beber sin temor a envenenarse y de cuáles beber para renacer como una esplendorosa, todopoderosa y legendaria ave fénix.

Bandas como ENSLAVED, OPETH, NOVEMBERS DOOM y AHAB son citadas como influencias por WILLS DISSOLVE, bandas que juegan entre lo progresivo y lo extremo, por lo que los tiros van por esa interesante dirección. Lo que sorprende y diferencia de las bandas mencionadas anteriormente es que también añaden a la mezcla influencias del denominado post metal; se me vienen a la cabeza bandas como TOUNDRA, MONO e incluso THE OCEAN. Es en esto último donde recae el punto fuerte del trabajo en mi opinión, en específico en los relajados e incluso acústicos pasajes instrumentales, ya que consiguen crear atmósferas bastante envolventes que recuerdan al crepitar del fuego, como se puede ver en la instrumental «11-13-1833«, que es donde mejor se ve su destreza en esos menesteres al ser la única composición instrumental del disco.

Aunque he destacado una canción anteriormente y el disco cuenta con cinco temas en total, en realidad nos encontramos con un único tema, ya que todo está planteado como una única bella, aunque monstruosa, composición que es igual de maravillosa y fatalista que la portada del disco, la cual me recuerda bastante a La noche estrellada de Van Gogh. Los que estén metidos en propuestas progresivas lo mas probable es que no tengan ningún problema en tragarse un tema de larga duración y los que no lo estén puede que les cueste; de todas maneras, WILLS DISSOLVE se las arregla para gustar a ambos oyentes. Me gusta ver ambición en una banda y más cuando se trata de un debut, como es el caso, por lo que mi más sincera admiración y felicitación. Por poner alguna pega, sería el escaso uso de las voces limpias, ya que que no tienen tanto protagonismo como las guturales, aunque en su defensa diré que están perfectamente metidas en el momento justo cumpliendo su cometido y que a veces no se consigue la fluidez que se necesita para estos temas tan largos en los que la progresión es algo constante, por lo que se pierde un poco el hilo y se producen algunos momentos que considero algo forzados, aunque ocurre de manera muy breve.

De todas maneras aquí hay calidad desbordante que puede ser disfrutada a pesar de las escasa pegas mencionadas; negarlo seria de necios. Nos encontramos con un debut con muy buenas ideas y que merece mucho la pena. Será interesante ver los siguientes pasos de la banda en un próximo disco debido al potencial que tienen. Para terminar, tengo que destacar la temática del disco, que trata de la lluvia de meteoros de 1833, un evento interpretado erróneamente por los cristianos norteamericanos y luego reconocido como el comienzo de un cambio crítico hacia la comprensión de los fenómenos celestes.

Reviewed by: Daniel Vazquez Lobato

Review from Metal Temple

Sat, 28 Sep 2019 02:01:34 +0100

From: Metal Temple

Published: September 25, 2019

Original Link

WILLS DISSOLVE was formed in late 2015 in Houston, Texas by guitarist/vocalists Nick Block and Andrew Caruana, brought together by their love of Progressive, Doom, and Extreme metal. They were joined shortly by Black/Death metal drummer Branson Heinz and bassist Shaun Weller a veteran of the Punk/Metal scene in his home state of Michigan. “The Heavens are Not on Fire” is a reissue from 2018, and contains five lengthy tracks.

The title track leads us off, and it’s the longest, at over twelve minutes in length. Ambient keys usher in the entrance. It’s quite pretty, and melancholy in nature. Harmonic guitars enter and then the drums create a marching cadence. When the vocals drop, they are guttural utterances and a blackness covers everything. As sudden as it starts, an interlude of pretty clean guitars wipes out the madness with its tones. Clean vocals come into play and it takes on a Folky element at this point. But the chaos returns through the end of the song, ending on a note of beauty. “So do not Mistake these Ashes” opens with some clean guitar tones and a steady, low, distorted riff. The vocals are absolutely vile in nature. The ambient passage with clean vocals is a nice contrast to the heaviness of the song.

“For Signs from on High” opens with a slow, Doomy cadence, and then some blast beat drumming. There is a back and forth between harsh and clean vocals, and the song has an ominous feeling to it, like there are things alive in the dark too filthy to conjure an image of. The ambient passage is again nicely done, as well as the harmonized lead guitars. “On this Cold November Night” opens with sad clean guitars and vocals, imagining what you would have on a cold November night. Winter draws near, and all you have to look forward to are colder and darker days. It waxes and wanes, drawing power from the alternating passages.

“11-13-1833” warranted a Google search. It was the date of a major meteor shower…72,000 in an hour. This doleful instrumental is a stark contrast with what would have been a major historical event in science. Overall, I really appreciated the diversity of sounds presented on the album, though it was hard to pigeon-hole the genre. Sometimes, the weight of the crushing Doom was enough to nearly kill you, while the ambient and melodic passages were quite beautiful. The transitions to and fro made sense, and the entire album came together with this undying synergy and uniqueness. Overall, an undeniable winner.

Rating: 8/10

Reviewed by: Dave Campbell

Review from Musipedia of Metal

Sat, 07 Sep 2019 16:12:44 +0100

From: Musipedia of Metal

Published: September 5, 2019

Original Link

Wills Dissolve are a 4 piece based in Houston, Texas. The band, who formed in 2015 features Nick Block and Andrew Carvana on Guitar and Vocals both formerly from the band Act Of War, who are joined by Branson Heinz on Drums and and Shaun Weller on Bass and Vocals. The band play a very interesting style of progressive extreme metal. It’s mainly progressive death metal, but there are elements of Black and Pagan metal in their sound as well. So, progressive extremity then, but in many ways this band are unique, so trying to push them into genre boundaries seems a little pointless. There are similarities with bands like Opeth (metal era), Enslaved (progressive era), Ihsahn, Rivers Of Nihil, or last years excellent album by Chapel Of Disease, but don’t take that as meaning they sound like any of those bands.

The similarity is in how the bands mix different styles and allow the music to take them where the music needs to go, and aren’t constrained by genre conventions. Although I’ve mentioned those other bands Wills Dissolve are also totally original and not in any way derivative. The Heavens Are Not On Fire tells the story of the 1833 Leonid Meteor shower, which was erroneously interpreted by American Christians as the beginning of the Biblical Apocalypse. This miss-interpretation was also a tipping point between older, more credulous interpretations of stellar occurrences, and modern astronomy. The band have described the album as being a ‘Meditation On Religion, Violence and Cosmic Chaos’. It is a reissue of their debut album released last year, this time on Hypnotic Dirge records in preparation for a new album coming soon.

Structurally this is a very interesting album. The album contains 5 tracks, 4 very long songs and a 3 minute piano, clean guitar and bass instrumental. The titles of the tracks (and album), form a sentence that describes the subject matter of the album. So, it goes like this: The Heavens Are Not On Fire (track 1), So Do Not Mistake These Ashes (track 2), For Signs From On High (track 3), On This Cold November Night (track 4), 11-13-1833 (track 5). Tracks 1 - 4 all come in at a little over or under 10 minutes, they also seem to merge together, so the last riff of one song becomes the first riff of the next track. This makes the album feel like one huge, nearly fifty minute track, I would be fascinated to learn if they wrote the album as one long song, and then split it into individual songs, or if it was written as 5 separate tracks.

As I’ve mentioned before the music isn’t really one specific style. The album opens very slowly, with individual tones slowly fading in, in a manner that is very reminiscent to Pink Floyd. Military style drums crash in, announcing a 6:8 riff, that reminds me a little of Primordial. The song speeds up, and harsh death metal style vocals blasts in feeling heavy and expansive. After this, the track changes direction and goes into a clean, folky section with amazingly good clean vocals, with some very impressive vocal melodies. This section, although folky in style, has a little jazz in its sensibilities. After a beautiful clean section the track gets heavy again, but this time it's more extreme, faster with more blast beats, but still melodic and tuneful. This feels huge and heavy, and gets more extreme as the song nears the end, but with an underlying tunefulness that is fantastically melodious.

That's the first track, I could go on describing each track, but this already overlong review would become ridiculous. The other 3 long songs have a similar structure in the sense that each track is multifaceted, constantly changing piece of genius. In the other tracks there are elements of Black metal, in that there are some tremolo picked riffs (some of which are insanely beautiful and melodic), there are huge doom riffs, melodically amazing folk sections, driving death metal riffs that pound you into the ground, and some of the best guitar solos I’ve heard in a long time. What Wills Dissolve also have, is one of the best vocalists in metal. 3 of the members of Wills Dissolve are credited as vocalists; but I haven’t been able to find out who does which voice. The harsh voice is great, very good death metal vocals, but the clean voice is stunning, genuinely one of the best clean voices I’ve heard in extreme metal. The vocal melodies are amazing, they are great on the clean parts, but when the band mix heavy music with clean vocals, my god, it just soars.

The Heavens Are Not On Fire is a staggering album. It’s incredibly diverse in its influences, each track constantly changes, but all the transitions between disparate elements are seamless and so well realised you forget this is a the bands first album. This album has so many massive melodies that get stuck in your head, I’ve been humming this album pretty much nonstop since I got it. The Heavens Are Not On Fire is an astonishing, confounding, remarkable piece of work. It’s going to be a definite contender for my favourite album this year, I have a feeling it will be at the top of a lot of other End Of Year Lists as well. Do yourself a favour and get your hands on this album, it’s spectacular!

Rating: 9/10
Reviewed by: Matt Bladen

Review from Chama do Metal

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 16:27:18 +0100

From: Chama do Metal

Published: September 3, 2019

Original Link

Saudações Bangers! Hoje, com muito prazer lhes apresentamos Wills Dissolve, banda estadunidense de Progressive Death Metal formada em 2015, porém com apenas um álbum na bagagem, estreando em 2018. Seu primeiro e único trabalho, “The Heavens Are Not On Fire...”, é caracterizado por apresentar uma excelente linha instrumental com muitas variações de ritmo característica das bandas já consagradas no cenário progressivo, além das clássicas longas composições. Logo na primeira faixa, que carrega o título do álbum, temos uma ótima visão da proposta da banda, com uma belíssima introdução com um violão dedilhado e um solo choroso (elemento que se tornará bastante presente no decorrer do álbum), acompanhado por sinos, que ao ser introduzido um solo de bateria desenvolvido por Branson Heinz, que mais adiante usa e abusa dos pedais, logo dão espaço para as guitarras distorcidas de Nick Block e Andrew Caruana (ambos nos vocais) que possuem sua sonoridade reforçada pelo gravíssimo contrabaixo de Shaun Weller (também assumindo um dos vocais), que ao longo das demais faixas, utiliza de linhas destacadas das guitarras, as vezes incrementando rápidos solos. Não se pode dizer que há faixas velozes e calmas estritamente, pois ambos os elementos flertam entre si em cada faixa, havendo momentos de pura fúria e guturais trovejantes com riffs agressivos e velozes a momentos com vocais limpos e instrumental acústico, com presença de teclados em alguns momentos. Salvo a exceção da última faixa, “11-13-1833”, que além de ser a mais curta do álbum, com duração na casa dos 3 minutos, é apenas instrumental, com violões e piano, dando um toque melancólico na saideira. Um detalhe que não se deve deixar de lado são as relações com demais artes que a banda aparenta se ter, sendo o título de cada uma de suas faixas formando trechos que juntos dão uma frase, revelando da natureza quase poética da banda, além da belíssima pintura na arte da capa.

Algumas faixas, como a segunda intitulada “So Do Not Mistake These Ashes”, apresentam inclusive uma musicalidade muito próxima da fase mais antiga da banda Opeth especialmente no álbum “Watershed” (uma possível influência), com melodias distorcidas e velozes batidas, porém acompanhadas do vocal limpo, dando o bom e velho contraste melodia versus peso

Apesar de poucas faixas, não há de forma nenhuma uma experiência “momentânea” em ouvir, pois cada música se trata de praticamente uma viagem sonora. Com excelente instrumental, peso digno de bater cabeça entrelaçados com abrasivas passagens acústicas que logo nos remente a outros “estados de espírito”, Wills Dissolve traz um ótimo material, perfeitamente recomendado para fãs de Prog. Metal, Prog. Death, e mais especificamente, fãs de bandas como Opeth, Novembers Doom ou Barren Earth

Reviewed by: Eduardo Ronconi

Review from The Progressive Aspect

Mon, 05 Aug 2019 22:58:28 +0100

From: The Progressive Aspect

Published: March 27, 2019

Original Link

Texas-based progressive metal band Wills Dissolve’s debut album, The Heavens are Not on Fire, is an Opethian meditation on misanthropy and religion told through the lens of a rural West Texas religious community’s reaction to the Leonid meteor storm of November 1833. Guitarist Andrew Caruana described the overall theme as “the grave consequences of misapplied dogmatic zeal,” as realised in the story of that small religious community. Musically, the album feels like a soundtrack with its changing moods and the seamlessness of its transitions, a characteristic that is further emphasised by the way the song titles work together to form a single sentence.

The album opener, and title track, is an eclectic blend of dark ambient, death metal, and metalised folk song. As with all the songs on the album, Wills Dissolve’s use of varying textures and soundscapes gives the nearly twelve-and-a-half-minute song motion and life that is sometimes lacking in songs of such extended lengths. The song has an arch-like structure that begins and ends with quiet ambience to bookend the chaotic metal riffing in between. The peak of the arch is a passage that features a melody akin to a sea shanty or other compound meter folk songs, sung using clean vocals. This eventually transitions through a whispered section back into the more chaotic sounds.

The first song transitions seamlessly into So Do Not Mistake These Ashes, which opens with a syncopated riff that is completely blown away by the death metal riffs and growling of the verses. As with the previous song, there is a softer and cleaner interlude about halfway through that eventually yields again to brutal death metal. The opening riff returns in the end as a sort of coda to the song before transitioning to the next.

Unlike the previous two songs, For Signs From on High opens heavy and does not deviate far from that sound throughout. There is a brief passage where the intensity diminishes, but the heaviness of the music remains along with the growled vocals. The song ends with the lines “no more certainty, no more humanity” before transitioning to an unaccompanied acoustic guitar for the last minute of the song and segueing into On This Cold November Night.

The penultimate song on the album opens acoustically with clean vocals as the singer reflects on the events that have taken place. He describes walking around in a daze, his mind hazy and his soul filled with doubt. After a prolonged instrumental interlude, the growling vocals and blastbeats return to alternate with the cleaner sound for the remainder of the song, as if to illustrate the struggle to accept what he has witnessed. This song ends with solo piano over the sound effect of a crackling fire.

The final, and shortest song on album, is the instrumental 11-13-1833. The song has a real “closing credits” feel to it, as if its purpose is to give the listeners an opportunity to ponder the story they just heard and consider its importance and implications.

It seems odd to think of something described as a progressive combination of death, doom, and black metal as “an easy listen,” but it really is. The contrasts within songs and the seamless segues between them creates a musical work that really just slips by without any real effort from the listener. I wish my review copy included a lyric sheet so that I could comment more fully on the narrative and quality of the lyrics, but what I was able to decipher through listening sounded well-crafted. I cannot recommend this album highly enough.

Reviewed by: Eric Strother

Review from Toilet Ov Hell (Song Premiere)

Mon, 05 Aug 2019 22:56:31 +0100

From: Toilet Ov Hell (Song Premiere)

Published: October 3, 2018

Original Link

I know it’s hard to elicit excitement for a premiere of a debut album since, ya know, you haven’t heard of them before, but what if I told you it’s HECKIN’ GOOD!?

Texas’ Wills Dissolve take a sort of Opethian approach to songwriting with a hypnotic repeating melodies, but with one major difference: they don’t linger on one riff forever. Mixed into their style is just about anything that could possibly sound good with obvious doom, black, and prog influences. The Heavens are Not on Fire stuns with solos, crushes with blast beats, and blindsides with range.

I’m excited to premiere my favorite track “On This Cold November Night”. It kicks off sounding like a track off Damnation, with an Akerfeldt croon over a clean guitar tone, but quickly meanders in to a beautiful solo with a drum fill that refuses to quit. Harsh vocals take the lead for a minute before a cathartic pulsing riff enters followed by yet another solo. It’s a wild ride!

A major theme of the album, highlighted by the track names, is the Leonid meteor showers and their presumably mind-blowing effects on the spectators in 1833, who had yet to learn the exact nature of the phenomenon. The sort of phantasmagoric feeling is reflected perfectly in both melodic introspective and raw fearful moments. They also don’t shy away from shaming the grifters who try to use the unknown to strike fear in the gullible for their personal gain, which is a pretty great theme.

The production is a bit raw for their incredibly dynamic breadth, but for a self-released debut, the undeniable writing talent is impossible to miss. Go grab it on Bandcamp for just a few bucks when it releases on October 26.

Reviewed by: Joaquin Stick

Review from No Clean Singing (Song premiere)

Mon, 05 Aug 2019 22:53:55 +0100

From: No Clean Singing (Song Premiere)

Published: September 11, 2018

Original Link

So much obvious contemplation and care has gone into the debut album, The Heavens Are Not On Fire, by the genre-bending Houston band Wills Dissolve that it became a many-layered artistic achievement, from the conceptual framework to the album art to the music, which is itself multiply textured, technically impressive, and constantly changing but coherent.

Perhaps it’s best to begin with the album’s concept, which is itself fascinating. It’s based on the Leonid meteor shower of November 1833, the first great meteor storm of modern times, in which hundreds of thousands of meteors blasted through the atmosphere per hour. In rural West Texas (as in other locales), it was mistaken as a sign from God, followed by destruction. From that event, Wills Dissolve have crafted a musical meditation on religion, violence, and cosmic chaos — or as one band member has remarked, “the grave consequences of misapplied dogmatic zeal.”

The concept is reflected in the album title, but also in the song titles themselves, which together form a sentence: “The heavens are not on fire, so do not mistake these ashes for signs from on high on this cold November night, 11-13-1833“.

With that concept animating them, Wills Dissolve turned to the Brazilian artist Cauê Piloto (an NCS favorite), and guided by the band’s ideas he created the beautiful cover painting, which vividly reflects both the concept of the album and the sensations of the music.

As for the music, it’s worth knowing that the members of Wills Dissolve come from disparate musical backgrounds, with divergent interests. As discussed in the same interview quoted above, the members (guitarists/vocalists Nick Block and Andrew Caruana, bassist Shaun Weller, and drummer Branson Heinz) brought to the band musical tastes that range from black and death metal to doom, from progressive rock and post-metal to punk. The band’s name comes from a track of the Isis masterpiece Panopticon, and that band, along with Opeth, Ihsahn, and Ahab, are among the influences that led Block and Caruana to form the band in late 2015.

Signs of this musical diversity are scattered across the adrenaline-triggering and equally mesmerizing song from The Heavens Are Not On Fire that we’re premiering today, the name of which is “So Do Not Mistake These Ashes“.

Bright, darting guitar reverberations ring out at the start; a crashing drum-and-bass appearance leads into a heavy, bouncing rhythm as the guitar notes continue to flicker and then swirl; the drums thunder and a lashing riff joins in along with harsh growls and mind-warping leads; the layered leads transform into a boiling extravagance as the rhythm section hammers hard; surprising clean vocals soar soulfully over bursts of percussive weaponry and glimmering melody; and a beautiful guitar solo also whirls and soars.

A light acoustic-and-electric guitar duet with a self-reflective mood breaks the surge, and becomes a dance, which then segues into a burst of battering, searing power as the harsh vocals return. Yet another remarkably vibrant guitar solo helps send the music toward the heavens even as the vocals provide a harsh serrated edge; the band then move into a mix of heavy, hard-jarring rhythms and sparkling guitar notes… and the song ends abruptly, as if about to move right into the next track, which is equally fascinating.