Gaerea – Coma
Release Date: 25th October 2024
Label: Season of Mist
Bandcamp
Genre: Black Metal, Extreme Metal.
FFO: Mgla, Wolves in the Throne Room, Blackbraid, Uada.
Review By: Jeff Finch
What tends to strengthen the ferocity of black metal, apart from the blistering percussion and inhumanely paced riffs, is the lyrical content and the way in which it’s presented. Sure, when hearing the term “black metal,” a great many uninformed listeners may immediately jump to Satan worship, death, blood, etc, and for a great many black metal bands (too many to count) this rings true. But a band like Gaerea approaches their black metal with a bit more of a contemplative style, focusing instead on relevant, personal themes: narcissism, mental numbness, self-destructive tendencies, and a hatred for the human race. Lyrics that I’m sure many can relate to, wrapped in a shroud of mammoth riffs and pummeling percussion, rendering this black metal some of the most impactful in the genre.
While the band is known for blistering pace, fat riffs, and excellent production, all of which make their presence known on this record, the highlight of this newest release Coma is the vocal performance from Guilherme Henriques; while the band provides crushing support in the background, he lets loose these despondent lyrics with the fervour and intensity of a man at wits end, screaming to the heavens as bedlam reigns behind him. As if the band couldn’t surprise us anymore at this point in their career, clean vocals hit us at points across the record, nothing to worry about from those that equate clean vocals to lack of heaviness; this album is still rife with black metal ferocity, the title track in particular standing out, high shrieks of pain dropping to lower wails as the drummer relentlessly hammers the double bass and the guitars shift into rapid fire tremolo riffs reaching multiple crescendos.
The opening minutes of Wilted Flower and The Poet’s Ballet see the band transform into an acoustic act, brilliant and emotive strings plucked, rendering listeners calm as a ferocious wail emerges from the depths of Henriques, the former seeing the band at full throttle before a series of contemplative moments take center stage, whispered clean vocals over cleanly plucked guitars an outlet with which to breathe after all of the anger and noise that’s been thrown at us thus far, only to re-emerge into the maelstrom, a musical metaphor for life perhaps, the shrieking and wailing a consecutive series of emotive transitions. The latter provides a lengthier dive into the calming world created by the acoustic guitar and whispered cleans, only to rip us from its clutches with a blistering tremolo riff, crushing double bass, and pure anguish from Henriques, virtually unrelenting for the remainder of the track.
The band is great at creating tension and atmosphere throughout the album, understanding that the quieter moments bely the chaos set to commence, Suspended a perfect example; low notes plucked alternately with high notes, a slow, methodical pace with elongated riffs and tribal drums eventually giving way to the inevitable onslaught. The band, having built up to the sound instead of just handing it to us, takes us on a journey of sorts, contemplative to chaotic, only to completely perform the inverse later in the track, a simple guitar pluck, restrained drums, and a thick bass tone complementing the clean vocals to lull us once again. The tone shifts throughout these songs paint an ever-changing sky, not always dark, not always light, constantly shifting between recklessly ferocious to purposefully thoughtful and back again, a range of sounds for a range of human emotion, the music doing as much of the talking as the vocals.
For the duration, as heavy as the music is and as enjoyable as it is to hear, it’s nigh impossible to listen to these performances and gloss over the lyrics, as the two combine to paint the whole despondent picture. While it may be difficult to hear the lyrics in real time (depending on your ability to truly hear harsh vocals), the knowledge of the content, as combined with the music, renders the impact just as crushing. The destruction of aspirations and, by extension happiness, an overwhelming theme on Hope Shatters, human despair and immense regret on Suspended, finally achieving a semblance of freedom after having been locked up, whether physically or metaphorically, and unable to exist in the outside world, on A World Ablaze, and finally, what appears to be a reflection of oneself as though looking in as an outside entity, a third party to their own journey, on aptly titled Unknown.
Heavy stuff, made all the more powerful by the equally heavy music that pummels us, shifting in tone as the lyrics shift in tone, the entire album an exercise in emotional energy and intensity, a record that grabs hold of us in one hand and uses the other hand to make sure we can’t get away. Gaerea, as if they haven’t already done so, has proven to not be just a run-of-the-mill black metal band lost among the wave of their contemporaries but, rather, an entity that sticks out among the crowd based on the quality they bring to every record, allowing the music to speak for them. On Coma, they’ve once again spoken, and now it’s on the rest of us to listen.
(4.5 / 5)
