Adam Robertshaw
With the state of, well *gestures broadly at everything*, sometimes you need music to help you escape, to distract from the crumbling society around you and remind you there is still hope. Other times, though, it’s good to put something on that holds a mirror up and helps you make sense of the madness by confronting it head on. With Universal Heat Death, Oxford based stoner-metal crew Indica Blues have created an album that does the latter. Across its seven tracks it tussles with apocalyptic questions of what happens at the end of humanity itself, via the medium of raw yet melodic riff worship.
It’s been five years and a global pandemic since Indica Blues released their strangely prophetic previous record We Are Doomed. In the intervening years it’s not as if they’ve torn up the stoner/doom rule book to pieces, but they’ve certainly honed their chops. The influences of the likes of Electric Wizard, Kyuss, Clutch and Fu Manchu are still all over this record, but there’s also a marked improvement in the performances and songwriting. The riffs feel more self assured, there’s moments of pure brilliance in the dual guitar harmonies that are peppered throughout, the song structures are taught, and there’s a greater sense of melody than has ever been present on their previous offerings.
The tone is set from the off with the title track. Given the amount of ideas they pack into its three and a half minute run time, it feels longer than it actually is. This isn’t a bad thing; less disciplined bands would have stretched this out into an eight-minuter, and it would have suffered for it.
When they do venture into the seven-plus-minute territory later on the album in the form of ‘Debt Ridden Blues’ and Bloodsands II it’s not without purpose. The slow, bluesy shuffle of the former and the hazy atmosphere of the latter call for a more meditative approach.
Lead single ‘The Raven’ oozes with fuzz-drenched swagger and irresistible melodies, while The Slow Descent Into Hell sees the band vying for the vacancy left by the newly retired Orange Goblin, with its revved Harley engine of a riff and snarling vocal delivery courtesy of vocalist Tom Pilsworth.
A couple of real highlights of Universal Heat Death come in the form of the two-part ‘Bloodsands parts I&II’. The instrumental first part worships at the altar of Kyuss at their most psychedelic, led in most part by a hypnotic, string-skipping bassline from Andrew Haines-Villalata. A few songs later and ‘….part II’ picks up where it left off, this time adding vocals and some heavier riffing. They could have probably called it a day there, instead they fire into the heavy boogie of ‘So Low’, which does seem like the only throwaway moment on the album and an odd song choice for on which to bring the universe itself to an end.
Stoner metal is a genre built on familiar tropes and there is a razor thin line between brilliance and banality. A few minor choices in the songwriting, playing and production can be the difference between a record being as heady as the finest strains of sativa, or as stale as old bongwater. Thankfully with Universal Heat Death, Indica Blues have created a record that can sit proudly among the more exciting records of the genre.