A growling, snarling beast of a release, Misery is the debut album from Swiss quintet Down To The Bunker and an encounter which marks them out as one richly promising, indeed already impressive proposition. Offering up nine tracks of alt metal predation merged with heavy rock contagion and hardcore dissonance it all delivered with potent technical prowess and an uncaged heart, the release is one wake-up call to and declaration of intent from one rather exciting outfit.
Formed in 2012, the Genève hailing band has worked through years of line-up instability as it searched for the right personnel. It is a time though the band equally used to explore and hone a sound which is as unpredictable as it is varied and adventurous. A self-titled EP in 2015 drew keen attention though its support live was a struggle with again a changing line-up trespassing the next steps for Down To The Bunker. Now though things seem to have settled and with the band’s strongest line-up to date, the stability relishing result being the striking Misery.
Embracing a sound which sees the likes of Tool, Korn, Rage Against The Machine, Meshuggah, Gojira, Promethee, and Code Orange amongst its inspirations, Misery is an album which arouses as it challenges. Almost every moment has attention glued to its lures, the thrill of the unexpected rearing its head throughout an encounter which twists the familiar into its own pattern of fresh imagination and invention. Certainly there are moments where it ebbs and flows in the intensity of its temptation but there are few if any moments where it allows the listener to impulsively drift off elsewhere.
From the opening bait of first track Mother, the album was burrowing under the skin; sonic lures straining against the speakers urgently wanting out. The guitars of Matt and Jerem continue to bait the senses as heavier and darker strands join them, the bass of Arnaud a predatory taunt alongside the considered but imposing swings of drummer Léo. Completed by the fine tones of vocalist Jo, the track swiftly grows into a formidable and compelling incitement, imagination and unpredictability increasingly fuelling its enterprise and inescapable persuasion.
The increasingly magnetic and impressive start is easily continued by the album’s title track. It too springs from a seductive sonic lure if one which lances the senses rather than caresses them. The emerging web of guitars ensnared ears with swiftly nagging and devious intent; a strength of coercion matched in voice and rhythm. There is a touch of Mudvayne to the track at times which does it no harm or indeed the atmospheric winds which bring haunting melodies amid seemingly calm but dark aural intimation.
With the twisted canvas of The Asylum a refreshing bedlam of sound and individual craft shaped into another tantalising captivation come threat and the, at times, even more creatively unhinged and similarly fascinating Chrysalis, there is no let up on attention and enjoyment. Each track lured and trapped both with a creative greed which alone marks Down To The Bunker out, a dexterity in thought, songwriting and adventure which equally infests next up Ethics. As with all songs, it is a writhing collusion of sonic vines and metallic dissonance matched in vocal and lyrical dispute, and like each a blend of the barbarous and seductive as a cast of styles and flavours join up to ignite the band’s imagination and sound. There are moments of deceptive and corrupted calm which maybe disrupt the flow and impact of the track but it is that unexpected ideation which also makes it as potent as anything within Misery.
Through the intimately reflective and melodically evocative Waves, a quest with its own underlying snarl, and the sonically invasive and haunting Lost In The Desert, there was no let up on bold enterprise and striking intimation. The latter is like a senses suffocating limbo which slowly but surely reveals it’s waiting demons and distortions resulting in an experience which gloriously tests and provokes.
a final pair of bonus tracks in Machine and Alive brings the album to a dramatic and imposing close. The first and another major highlight of the release openly wears familiarity in its holler yet it would be hard to say it is anything other than a Down To The Bunker creative clamour while its successor prowls, pretty much crawls through ears with a great mix of heavy grunge and rapacious metal bound in melodic volatility.
It is a great end to an album which just pleasures and grows more impressive over time. In their seventh year Down To The Bunker will be making their first introduction to a great many with Misery but it is easy to believe they will be no strangers to them and major spotlights hereon in.
Misery is released February 22nd via Tenacity Music; available @ https://tenacity-music.bandcamp.com/album/misery
https://www.facebook.com/DownToTheBunker
Pete RingMaster 20/02/2019
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
EP opener, Only Shades, comes into view on cold winds, a portentous pulsation accompanying its emergence before guitars entangle the growing intimation. It all veers into a groove driven stalking of the senses, a powerful and sinister stroll loaded with restrained but invasive rhythms and potent throat raw vocals. Those grooves continue to lure keen attention within the similarly inviting if threatening consumption of sound where melodic enterprise and tempestuous intimation only adds to the track’s imposingly stirring presence, the EP off to a highly persuasive and stirring start.
Inspired by a fan at their first show after returning, Let It Go is an infectious stroll with a web of hooks which just relentlessly hit the spot. Bass and drums create a tasty nagging as persistent as it is mercurial in its attack whilst guitar and vocals colour the heart of the emotion bred encounter. Embracing a weave of rock bred flavours the song makes it easy for ears and personal thoughts to be involved with its presence before the melancholic but uplifting Sorrows fully grabbed attention and fresh plaudits.
The following Hysteria surges through ears with punk ‘n’ roll rancor, beats thumping with flirtatious violence as group shouts and urges accompany individual temptation. It is a seriously enjoyable and insatiable trespass emulated in its own way by successor Golden Rats but given a whole new web of twists and turns to become scorched by and addicted too. Both tracks reveal more of the bolder hunger and adventure in the band’s sound; exploration further stretched and exploited within the invasively mercurial Death Cab. As its punk heart bellows and ensnares like a malicious Shevils, the band’s rock ‘n’ roll instincts gains momentum, the great blend of vocals following the imaginative endeavour. Wiry grooves and the brooding growl of the bass only add to the unbridled magnetism brewed and devoured.
The excellent start is matched by the caustic stomp of Find A Way, its intensive assault a furious charge compared to the swagger of the previous protagonist but veined with melodic tendrils and scythes and twisting spirals of noise. For all the rage, already an inbred infectiousness is as powerfully commandeering reactions, Insanity entangling both with imagination and zeal. It is a quality as rich within the album’s title track and indeed What I See after that. The first of the pair points and challenges with every syllable and note, band cries and neck muscle testing catchiness a particular trespassing incitement within nothing but while the second flows from its predecessor upon another deliciously grouchy bassline into a web of seriously grooved and rapacious punk rock with the instincts to rock ‘n’ roll.
It is hard to say that Life’s December is yet offering anything boldly new in sound but from this song alone there is plenty of fresh resourcefulness to get the teeth and appetite seriously into; a potent and dynamic persuasion which continues with Memories and World Of Blame. The first gets right under the skin in no time with its steely grooves and grouchy riffs. Once in control it then uncages a rapacious torrent of melodic intrusions and rhythmic rancor which in turn is soon involved in a net of more welcoming and emotively lively exploits. Across the song, the band seamlessly slips into mellower or more cancerous endeavours, contrasts and extremes skilfully woven together to create one of the more dramatically unique and memorable passages within the album. In comparison, its successor is a carnal tempest of noise and spite; a fall into sonic causticity and vocal ire which without matching up to its predecessors still has ears fully engaged especially as it expands its stark and increasingly cancerous landscape of sound and emotion.
The excellent start is superbly continued by Shiba and its heavily bruising and similarly contagious intensive boogie. There are no escaping essences of bands like Kyuss and Queens Of The Stone Age as a flirtatiously salty scything of guitar streaks through the brooding invasion of cantankerous bass and swiping beats, but with its gripping atmospheric theatre and ravenous intensity the track is uniquely a Dog Days beast.