Stone Healer – Conquistador
Release Date: 30th April 2021
Label: Self Released
Bandcamp
Genre: Blackened Progressive Metal, Progressive Deathened Darkened Metal.
FFO: Dodheimsgard, Ulcerate, Akercocke, Alice In Chains.
Review By: Ben Harris-Hayes
OK, so any band that says their new release is for fans of bands of such calibre as Ulcerate, Krallice, Dodheimsgard, Alice In Chains and Paradise Lost has got my attention from the off.
However, there is a need to be wary of such statements because, let’s face it, Ulcerate sound nothing like Alice In Chains and if I played both bands to your average person, I’d bet a small sum of money they’d be utterly confused at the comparison.
However, this is NOT to say that both bands couldn’t easily ‘lend’ from one another’s takes on ‘the heavy’, their melodic approaches to writing music and the audio sources they venture from to create a sonic journey…and THAT was my understanding of where the new release from Stone Healer was attempting to guide us with that opening PR gambit…but they certainly had my expectations for some forward-thinking heavy music peaked.
The emotive acoustic guitars of the near 9 minute opening track, ‘One Whisper’, certainly were not quite what I was expecting…and then they genuinely made me chuckle as the cowbell kicked in!
Because every band needs some hawt-damn cowbell, right!?
The somewhat straight-forward rock opening was just a smart smokescreen before the blastbeats and tremolo picking kicked in…and that is where the heavier end of their influences started shining through.
After reviewing a few records recently where the bands religiously stuck to their guns (some straight-up head-battering death metal and straight-up beige rock), it was nice to have a band who were unafraid to show their wide-ranging influences and at least try to deliver the monumental task of cramming all those ideas into one cohesive flowing effort.…which I know very well from experience to be a tough task.
There is a lot going on in terms of style-shifts, timing signatures and it certainly kept me interested. The song lengths are all 6 minutes and upwards (except track 6, which I am guessing is a pre-track for track 7?), so you know you know you’re in for a musical journey in each track and will be getting a hot and fresh bowl of riffs, feels and dynamics with every track.
The lovely major resolve to the ‘prog’ riff in earlier part of ‘Whence Shall I’ was something that definitely caught my ear and I couldn’t help but think of a lot of bands I really like but couldn’t place it directly, so I knew that was something excellent.
The third track is an 11 minute opus entitled ‘Surrender’ and it is quite a journey, ranging from chunky riffs before dissipating into a lovely lengthy AIC/Opeth-fuelled section that builds and picks up pace with a smart and subtle tempo ramp, which in turn yields to a move to the darker and dissonant riffage that Stone Healer like to deliver throughout this record.
It’s that ability to navigate the dynamics that made me quite stoked for this record.
Additionally, the near-atonal style riffage when it got down and dirty was smartly done.
The arpeggio riff in track 7’s ‘Into The Spoke of Night’ was a delight and something I kept humming after the record had been put away.
There are a number of great acoustic sections that I really enjoyed throughout the record and Dave Kaminsky, (who also handles the guitars and bass brilliantly) has a solid voice and lures us in with his disarming harmonised clean vocals, which he can switch up to deliver a convincing Kvost-style vocal and then scare the kids senseless with his raging heavier vocals, as and when required.
His brother, Matt, who completes the line-up, is a heck of drummer and holds it all together with a compelling percussive performance, underpinned by some smart flowing fills, solid grooves and slamming blastbeat goodness.
OK, so I’ve been craving something meaty yet emotive to get my proggy-tinged fingers into recently.
Something that tries to push forward and yet delivers the heavy to go alongside the light in a convincing style.
Have this band got it down?
Not 100%, but they are not far off the target at all.
It still lacked a certain je ne sais quoi in regards to the merger of all these different styles of heavy, but I can heartily recommend this record to a lot of friends.
Stone Healer have attempted to cram a lot into their latest release and there certainly are some moments that caught my ear that I hope my fellow lovers of the more progressive end of extreme metal will enjoy.
They handled a wide-range of musical coverage very well, because after all, you cannot have the blasting without the cleaner bits to offset them because for me it’s all nothing without dynamics.
I think one thing I’d say is that StoneHealer certainly have their own thing going on here and I look forward to where they go next, because although this album is not super stellar, it is unique enough to get this crusty old scribe grinning.
So, in summation…
The timing signature counting/extreme metal-loving person in me gives this a 4/5 because it kept me interested with its swirling and ever-flowing structures, honest lyrical outlook and clear production.
The shameless pop-nerd in me wanted a little more from the vocal hooks and some more meaty riffs to stick in my head, but maybe that wasn’t the point here… – 3/5
So, mathematically, it’s a solid (upper-end) three and a half and an emphatic flashing of the horns to the Kaminsky brothers for doing their own thing and not balking at the immense task they gave themselves with this album.
(3.5 / 5)
