This record can’t be labeled as safe—it’s inner demon warfare. Veil Lifter, the new 10-track drink of stout from Post Death Soundtrack routes doom, grunge, hardcore and thrash into the bloodstream of a fierce metal machine. I listened to this in a black room with eyes closed and a rather enjoyable “spiced tea“. This is my personal take on the album.
It begins with At The Edge Of It All, a half-minute cerebral intro that sounds like you’re standing on the threshold of a cliff, taking a look below and contemplating jumping into a musically psychedelic Hell.
Stephen Moore’s vocals were a harsh wake up call to my dark side. They sit high on top, wanting to be heard.
I fell into the first track hard; The Die Is Cast took me backwards in time, when I was “passionately antagonistic” and attended a lot of underground metal shows. About 3 minutes in, you get a nice melodic break from heavy riffs and float away into its hypnotic ending. I woke up from my nice little narcosis with Killer Of The Doubt. The way the lyrics were composed was more reminiscent of a power metal band with a lot of space between the vocals and the musical groove pancake at the bottom.
Icy Underground is a weighty continuance of dark internal exploration in psychedelic sludge. A minute long, nostalgic sound introduces the next track—Arjuna’s Hunting Hand. If anxiety was a living entity, then this would be its lyrical song.
The slow moving angst gets warmer on Lowdown Animal, as this guy’s sound really shines when he invokes his inner, primitive growl. Tide Turns Red seems to be about seeing through through someone’s bullshit (according to my own perception; still listening in the dark). I like Burrowing Down The Spine; it’s got some catchy melodies and rhythms amongst the emotional turmoil. And as a lover of men screaming, Pin Prick was absolutely lovely. I could live vicariously through the ire of this song; its medicine helped to curb my current appetite for cursing enemies. Isn’t that what we listen to heavy metal for?
Now I was nearly to the end with Immovable. It started beautifully, with those bizarre, daydreamy intros I’ve always liked. The beginning riffs had a great diminished chord charges, creating that nice tension I like so much with my feel-good revenge fantasies. The entire song has an air of doom metal mixed with old Sabbath; it’s probably one of the album’s better tracks; it stands out. Around five minutes in, we get a nice dive into pleasurable guitar grooves fading towards the end. Hammer Come Down is the last track, leaving me with a sense of no closure in a dying world.
This album is, overall, an internal battle with dark forces with some pretty muscular vocals. Post Death Soundtrack is the heavy Doom-Grunge brainchild of Stephen Moore. He has hooked up with Jon Ireson and Casey Lewis to create this fourth full-length release, and you can find it at Post Death Soundtrack’s bandcamp. It’s a pay-what-you-want release, so go take a listen and see if it pulls you into the same fuzzy abyss.
And you can listen at Spotify:
