From the burbling, fuzz ridden baselines to soaring vocals and death metal growls Severance by New York duo Netherlands drags you on an adventure over mountains, through dense urban sprawl and haunted ethereal soundscapes.
Despite the futuristic sound and somewhat cyberpunk aesthetic, Severance preaches a return to a time where technology was less like a binding web of cables, ports and content, and more a way for us to connect with the Earth on a spiritual level. Netherlands manage to create a sound that is both anchored in futuristic effects drenched psychedelia whilst maintaining the primal essence with the intense tribalistic drumming of David Keith. The duo of Keith (drums) and Timo Ellis (vocals/guitar) draw attention to the issues with unchecked rampant technological expansion and capitalist attitudes towards the mass consumption, whilst promoting a return to the more ritualistic ways of the past.
The title track, ‘Severance’, goes from Mastodon to Tame Impala, and back again all in the space of a four minute slab the weight of Sisyphus’ rock. The blistering opening flurry drops into a chord heavy Black Sabbath like riff, coupled with Ozzy Osbourne-esque vocals and shouted hardcore style reports. The reverb drenched caterwauling comes to a head as the track builds up to a crescendo in a way that could be easily mistaken for a Yob track. The vocals change once again to take on the essence of the great Mike Schiedt as the song concludes with Ellis screaming into the abyss.
‘Blue Whale’ continues to pound you with a big sludgy hammer but this time it also takes on an extra dimension with the driving dream pop vocals, Queens of the Stone Age would be pleased to have released this, as would Torche. ‘Goons’ opens with punk style drumming, only accompanied by a single chord (noise?). Ellis’ vocal delivery sits between Idles style matter of fact delivery and RATM’s angst ridden pleas for equality. The sparse lead guitar work, likened to post-shred in interviews sits proudly astride the rhythmic drumming which would be as at home here as it would be in a Berlin discotheque. Ellis clearly blames those in power for the troubles caused in the current Anthropocene, the lyric ‘there is no incentive to give up power/ they’ll sink the ship to not lose face’ shows exactly how he feels about the people in charge and their non-stop headlong race into oblivion.
The album is crushing end to end no doubt, although it isn’t flawless. Sometimes the music tends to slow to the point of atrophy, where there is a lack of direction and force that is present in the more energy ridden distorted sections. This isn’t as much of a problem as a symptom of just how good the ‘dirty’ sections of this record are, how Ellis and Keith manage to traverse so many different heavy genres and bring it all together into a hectic yet cognisant mass that is more than the sum of its parts. Almost despite itself the record still stands up as one of the more interesting pieces of music produced recently, and its message and meaning is not easily lost in the mass of fuzz, just as it is not easily digested by the listener.