Fires in the Distance – Air Not Meant For Us
Release Date: 28th April 2023
Label: Prosthetic Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Melodic Death Metal, Doom.
FFO: Paradise Lost, Amon Amarth, Swallow the Sun, Insomnium.
Review By: Rick Farley
Some of this first paragraph is taken directly from the press release, which I feel does a better job of explaining the albums themes without me mucking it all up.
Following the release of their acclaimed 2020 debut album, Echoes From Deep November, Connecticut, US melodic death/doom band Fires in the Distance are returning in 2023 with their much anticipated sophomore album, Air Not Meant For Us, set to release on Prosthetic Records. Further expanding on their music foundations of lush melodic soundscapes, crushing walls of bludgeoning guitars and emotional atmospheres. Comprised of six tracks, at fifty minutes of beautiful orchestration behind intense chugging heaviness and well executed songs, Air Not Meant For Us tie together intensely personal ruminations on mental health and themes of existentialism in the form of mortality salience, without losing sight of the importance of perseverance. The awareness that your own death is inevitable and how you go about handling it, is a burden we all must carry.
At first listen, Air Not Meant For Us is richly instrumental. The lusciousness of orchestral passages playing as leads to songs, interludes, and accents, all intensify the real feelings that are experienced with this record. However, you’ll quickly find the gargantuan riffs, pummelling double bass and deep growls lay the strong foundations for those rich musical textures that pristinely dance in between the hammering brutality. Each composition is devastatingly heavy with a looseness in guitar chunkiness, frosty Scandinavian tinged guitar melodies, and thunderous death roars in an almost spoken midrange delivery that sound of the Viking metal style are savage but still somehow welcoming. There’s a dramatic contrast between raw primal power and sheer beautifully done melodic passages that keeps the emotional centre from drifting too far in either direction. But it’s the orchestral elements that tie everything together in a way that makes this feel special and sincerely impassioned. The guitars will occasionally drop out completely, and you will just have pianos and thick drums powering the track towards an emotion drenched solo that tears at the heart strings. There’s an undeniable elegance about the record as it’s wielding its colossal axe towards its enemies. A refined fierceness, if you will.
Track one, Harbingers, clocks in at eleven minutes, thirty-eight seconds and uses every bit of it in a way that makes the song seem much shorter. Not an ounce of wasted space and incredibly memorable, the track chugs along at a steady pace of warring riffs and a ground shaking rhythm section. The interaction between the textural differences of bone smashing low end, forlorn walls of dense chords, gorgeous piano melodies and hooky drumbeats make this a standout track packed full of shining moments. The guttural berserker growls add extra bleak dimensions of brutality to the otherwise vibrant parts of the track. This song musically touches on aggression, hope, despair, and darkness without ever feeling unfocused or pieced tighter. Each song feels like a movement of a six part arrangement, leaving the feeling of complete absolution. All the way to the oppressiveness of track six Idiopathic Despair, we are treated with inspired mid-tempo melodic death metal and dark brooding doom that rivals Finland’s absolute best with moments of absolutely stunning melodicism. The replayability is extremely high, and Fires in the Distance makes this feel like a true journey. There is no way this isn’t on nearly every years end list. Air Not Meant For Us is an immediate must-listen. 
(4.5 / 5)
