Vile Creature

Cast of Static and Smoke

BY Mark TremblayPublished Feb 27, 2018

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Vile Creature, a doom two-piece from St. Catharines, ON, return with a tale of society's nuclear destruction in Cast of Static and Smoke. The album is a four-song journey of depression and dread — a funeral march towards our impending demise.
 
The album comes screaming out of the gate with walls of  guitar distortion, a tone that absolutely demolishes everything in its path. "Water, Tinted Gold & Tainted Copper" hits you over the head with a bulldozing guitar riff, immense and all-consuming in a way that makes most metal records sound thin.
 
What really makes this record stand out is how effortlessly it transitions from one song to the next; treating the album more like one piece of music with a variety of movements within it. "Circuits, Bending & Breaking" has a great drum pattern that really ties the first two tracks together. The incorporation of spoken word also acts as a great palate cleanser to signal new movements within the music. It's the recurring theme that signals new phases in the record; on songs like "Forest, Subsisting as a Tomb," it creates the perfect bridge between punishing riffs.
 
Vile Creature understand their strengths, and employ the collaboration of others when needed. This record is complex and has the depth needed for a concept record, but avoids all pitfalls often associated with them. If you like your doom metal to have more complexity and emotional peaks and valleys, this is must-have.
(Halo of Flies)

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