The RMR crew always has its feelers out for new or newish styles and – indeed – genres. You see, rock ‘n’ roll has been around for a while. And metal – well – starts to disintegrate into an overused and abused jumble of grades of metal that seem to go nowhere. Or at least, it ain’t really going where nobody went before. In other words, nobody was able to come up with something really new, and that’s been the case for many a decade.
So, we’re kinda excited to see those Post Metal somethings trickle in. They boast clean singing of what formerly was abject growling and strum away on weird mixes of clean guitars and acoustic excursions into strange and often strangely alluring soundscapes. The RMR crew likes to call that the new psychedelic movement. Because you need a lot of dope to stomach some of that. And that takes you back to times long gone where substances were kinda new and rock an experiment. And an exciting one to boot.
Now, the modern bunch here truly is special. Some try to bore you to death with excellent material. Others hide behind celestial objects. And yet more of them try to walk their forest barefoot and chant totally stoned around the forest. To scare them trees or something? We’ll never quite know for sure, I guess. And no, we don’t talk about those shaman dudes who try to recreate history with over-exaggerated earthy sounds.
Seven Nines And Tens here fit into that last category. And the insanely lengthy album title Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers truly speaks by itself. On top, the band wrote that the record, and I quote, “…aims to be one of the finest metal albums to be released in 2022 and a career highlight…” as their somewhat lofty goal. Right, and as always, challenge accepted.
From the first moment onwards, the record kinda pulls you back into the ’70s. That was a truly psychedelic era with long-haired, badly manicured dudes sporting round sunglasses.1 Now, this new-age movement of Post Metal and other psychedelic delights sports well-groomed bandmates in street clothes. Guys that will better fit the daily challenges of the ‘hood than the stuff they strut. And the folks over at Seven Nines and Tens are no different.
Over Opiated sounds like some bizarre mix of downturned Alcest and a full-blown Pink Floyd record. And the situation is – complicated. To pull off a Post Metal piece in all its progressive and psychedelic splendor is difficult. Excellency in songwriting is a must, and a theme or storyline truly beneficial. But here, the songs sound strangely mangled. Indeed, it is as if a listener needs to have some inherent understanding that only the disciples of Seven Nines and Tens will truly capture. And the RMR crew here wasn’t let in on the secret, it seems.
In fact, the whole production sounds frazzled with an arrangement that’s just not ironed out enough to display that smoothness important to a great production. Changes in style and tempi are often rough ‘n’ dirty, guitar samples sit strangely on top of the mix. And by doing that, the record often risks losing the vocalists in the fray. In other words, Over Opiated is full of imperfections, and I didn’t even start on the drums yet.2
Instead, let’s talk about the vocals for a moment. Projecting emotion is the biggest difficulty in this genre of potentially stale clear vocals and pretty frugal melodies. The record gorges with clears that meander about the tracklist on an even keel like a turkey in search of thanksgiving. So, it don’t matter if the band sets its sights on heavy music or acoustics, the vocals trickle out of the music machine without major inflection. This works fine for the first five minutes. But dive deeper into the album and it starts breaking down your patience.
Yet again, the switch from woozy psych to strangely heavy and somewhat sludgy metal often took us by surprise. There is some trve bite in the subdued shoegazing splendor often on display on Over Opiated.
So, you see, we tried hard to find that sweet spot where the tar would stick to the road Seven Nines and Tens tried to use so hard. And nothing that you read above came lightly, nor is it an attempt to disgrace the serious effort of blood, sweat, and tears that the band invested into their piece of work.
The RMR crew literally wasted some 10 friggin’ hours of our limited life expectancy on Over Opiated in a Forest of Whispering Speakers. Yet, all over again, we shipwrecked on a theme that seems to exist in another dimension – or not at all. And on a production with a gazillion whispering speakers and no almighty forester with a mean saw to clean out the deadwood for better focus.
So, in a way, I’m somewhat unhappy that this record did not quite end up on our good side. Because the talent is there with new ideas galore, but it just didn’t work out. The future will tell if the band will need more tar to have their wares stick better to the road they choose, or just an additional heap of red-hot rock to spice things up some more. I guess the next record will tell, right?
Record Rating: 5/10 | Label: Willowtip Records | Web: Official Band Site
Release Date: 7 January 2022