Storm of Light
Nations to Flames
Southern Lord
Street: 09.17
Storm of Light = Strapping Young Lad + Mouth of the Architect + Mastodon
This album takes a completely different direction with its post-metal influences than I was expecting. Instead of the gentle surges and mellow refrains, Nations to Flames takes you by the collar and shakes you again and again with its unrelenting chaos. For someone who usually finds post-metal to be formulaic and boring, this tempo shift was strangely welcome. Despite my initial resistance to the unfocused and cacophonous songwriting, I began to admire Storm of Light’s audacity in putting the metal back in post-metal. It takes guts to break away from the expectations of genre and shake up the formula. I see this album as a challenge, not only to the civilization it stands in opposition to, but to the comfortably structured restraints of its contemporaries. –Henry Glasheen