Qwertyy's Journal of Music Reviews and Other Assorted Ramblings

Ol’ Qwerty Bastard · 12-07-2016, 09:06 PM

Q'uq'umatz - I Know it's the Trees...
Recommended by Mondo Bungle

I Know it's the Trees I: Oh ****, we're jumping right into this thing. Some shredding over top of your typical black metal drums. There are areas where the two don't mesh together all that well, but as a whole it's certainly interesting. The vocals are ****ing great, like seriously some of the most satanic growls I've heard. These things make me want to hide underneath my bed and shiver in fear, props for that. Very interesting transition as we now have some flute and a collage of many different noises joining the fray. I would say again that my biggest beef with this is that the instruments seem to lack true cohesiveness as it kind of feels like each one is doing it's own thing. I really love all of this Native American influence on the album, it truly feels like it has a nature inspired vibe to it. Your guitar tone reminds me of Burzum which is a huge plus. The tribal drums are a nice touch as well, especially near the end of the track. Very nice start to the project.

I Know it's the Trees II: Some blackgaze-esque guitar to kick off this track. This is an amazing intro to the track, wow. More of the tribal drums and the flute. This track is a much more ambient approach for the majority of it, however near the 6 minute mark things are picking up. Some math-y guitar work that almost sounds kind of... Primus inspired? OH ****. WE'RE BUILDING UP. Now we're getting some elements of noise, and we're into a straight up black metal riff fast. God damn Mondo, that might have been a little rough around the edges but as a whole that transition was mother****ing wild. This is some ****in' top notch guitar work. Love the screeching noise to finish things off.

I Know it's the Trees III: And it starts out this track, nice transition. This is probably the most progressive track so far, lots of weaving in and out of different riffs and different times. Alright now we're getting a riff that honestly sounds like like it would fit really well in a thrash or trad metal song, the drums are at a little bit of disconnect again. At about 8 minutes in there's a really sweet riff that is reminding me of a bm version of a Nirvana song... can't think of which song but if I can remember I'll put it here. So things slowed down for a minute, and now we're building up with this epic violin(?) section that sounds like it's straight out of Skyrim. Again there's a little bit of a rough contrast between the sounds, but this is such an adventurous album and even if it doesn't always come together perfectly, I ****ing love what you were going through and what you accomplished with this. You did a great job ending this track too, beautiful little tribal piece.

The Forrest of Revisitation: Very prominent flute on this track again. Again there are moments were the flute, drums, and guitar do feel a little disjointed, and I think that's my biggest critique and only serious problem with the album. Definitely a chaotic track to close out with, a true wall of sound is totally submerging me in the album at this point. The conclusion of this track is fantastic yet a-****ing-gain. Dude, honestly I'm safe to say I could listen to a full of album of just that gay flute-y tribal Native American stuff because it's just so beautiful. Kind of like how some of the ambient pieces on Burzum records (yeah sorry, gonna compare you to Varg again real quick) end up making the album that much better, I think those short little interludes between tracks could do the same for you.

Final Verdict: Honestly I didn't expect to like this thing as much as I did. It's not that I don't think you're good at what you do, but I've just yet to hear many MB projects that have blown me away. This one, however, did exactly that. There were a few issues with the instruments meshing together, as I mentioned quite a few times, however if you can fix that up and bring together a more cohesive project with the same ideas that you presented on this thing, I truly believe you could make a remarkable piece of black metal music. Even with that being said though, I still enjoyed this immensely.

Pass