(2017) Sannhet - So Numb
Review:
The primary way of classifying the Brooklyn trio Sannhet is as an instrumental powerhouse. They have worked with black metal and post-rock, but neither of those genres define them; they harness extreme sounds while bringing a level of approachability to their music, with great emotional depth. Like many of their New York peers — Tombs, Krallice, and Yellow Eyes, for example — they use familiar forms to move into uncharted territories. On their third album, So Numb, they’ve left the sonic properties of black metal behind without dispensing of its forward motion, and shaking loose has helped them come into their own.
Guitarist John Refano relies less on repetitive tremolo passages, introducing more detached playing that compliments and also exists outside the rhythm section’s orbit. There are some traces of Sannhet’s metallic past—on the title track and parts of “Sapphire”—but Refano has switched an outright aggressive tone for a lusher sound that’s more suited for spacier breaks and tender melodies. Sannhet’s edge is drummer Christopher Todd, who has shifted from asset to primary drive. It’s no coincidence that the album begins with only drums on “Indigo Illusion,” working up to a climax instead of rushing right off.
Much like Todd’s former Flenser labelmate Ignat Frege of Wreck and Reference, he is active in a small space, bursting forth with fluidity that emphasizes power instead of complication. He takes the repetitive tom lull you find in a lot of Neurosis clones and makes it as energetic and urgent as a d-beat march. Once he breaks up AJ Annunziata’s solemn bassline in the beginning of “Sapphire,” he turns and makes Refano’s delicate riffs into forceful cries, adding energy without whipping nervous speed into the guitar.
More often than not, the drumming outpaces the guitar work, but it helps Refano take on new patterns that couldn’t be conceivable with their former blackened lockstep. Refano and Todd have always been the band’s core—Annunziata didn’t join until their 2013 debut Known Flood—and So Numb illuminates their interplay. “Way Out” is where they’re all clicking three steps ahead of everyone else: Todd pushes Refano’s melodies to ecstatic heights, which also veer in and out to make Todd rushing through even more alive and jarring.
So Numb celebrates constant activity, even in slower tracks like “Salts” and “Fernbeds” (featuring additional guitar from Planning For Burial’s Thom Wasluck) that emphasize Refano’s dreamier textures. “Sleep Well” reverses the dynamic, as Refano ascends into a squalling mass and leaves his bandmates locked in a noise-rock groove. Like the record of the record, “Sleep Well” is packed with lust for life, even when it turns more conventional. It’s not just a combination of sounds that makes So Numb an exceptional heavy record: it shows how comfortable they are pushing and working off each other. There’s a human element to how they squeeze raw emotion from industrialized creations. It flows with affirming beauty, despite how Annunziata has said the record draws from quite a bit of turmoil.
Sannhet is an all-consuming live experience, draping themselves in television static and flitting bars of white light while swallowing the audience in loudness and dexterity. When they played Show No Mercy’s SXSW showcase in 2014, it was a rare moment where I thought: I didn’t know you could do that with music. (The showcase was put on by former Pitchfork editor Brandon Stosuy, and his wife Jane Lea and son Henry are pictured on So Numb’s cover.) At that show, Sannhet’s references to black metal, post-rock, and overwhelming volume were familiar. But how they took all that to reach their own kind of ecstasy was bewildering. So Numb is where they’ve brought that totality to record; it is instrumental heavy music in Sannhet’s own language. Using recognizable words and expressions but elevating how they’re used, Sannhet is better categorized by what they evoke rather than what they play.
Tracklist:
01 - Indigo Illusion.flac
02 - Sapphire.flac
03 - So Numb.flac
04 - Fernbeds.flac
05 - Salts.flac
06 - Way Out.flac
07 - Secondary Arrows.flac
08 - Sleep Well.flac
09 - Wind Up.flac
Summary:
Country: USA
Genre: post-rock
Media Report:
Source : CD
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : ~ 629-1000 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
