Four years, a couple of lost bandmembers, assorted discarded drug habits, and a transcontinental relocation from Lawrence, Kansas to Seattle, Washington (among other life events, surely) bridged the gap between
Samothrace's critically lauded debut, Life's Trade, and its sophomore successor, 2012's
Reverence to Stone. In that time, the group's peculiarly progressive doom template has gone from borderline revolutionary to not yet quite commonplace, but it's growing fast and taking names -- all the more reason for this return, albeit in the shape of just two protracted musical epics reportedly cut live in the studio and requiring just over half an hour of your precious attention span. Come to think of it, perhaps something relatively brief but powerful was
Samothrace's plan right there, and a wise one it is considering the necessary patience and repeat listens required of those who would ingress into the band's deceptively murky musical world, a world where calculated arrangements and copious ideas come slathered in fog-like shrouds of feedback, vocal Armageddon, and guitars and drums heavier than the Greek deities that inhabited the band's namesake island. The aptly named "When We Emerged" takes stock of its new surroundings like some mutant kind of megalithic groundhog whose shadow engulfs all of 14 punishingly sludgy and atmospheric minutes. But it's the follow-up, "A Horse of Our Own" (even longer at 20 minutes), that offers more than a mere continuance of Life's Trade's innovations with its interchanging waves of surging and withdrawing intensity, amid fathomless guitar layers or, alternately, minimal licks and melodies. At the end of the day,
Samothrace communicate an emotional range that bleakly nihilistic funeral doom can rarely accomplish, while still proving altogether more grounded than the self-important post-metal endeavors of
Isis,
Mouth of the Architect, and the like. It's understandable if
Reverence to Stone should still feel a little too brief to be taken as a serious comeback statement by some listeners, but here's hoping that
Samothrace can turn in a few more songs -- and soon! -- to lay claim to their due credit in the burgeoning progressive doom sweepstakes. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia