Big Pit’s Bend in the Rift is all about honouring the past while pushing forward into the future. Taking off where their previous band Sarin left off, the members of Big Pit are all about embracing the light and melodic positivity that can be achieved in heavy music. Bend in the Rift shows growth in a group of individuals trying to approach post-metal from a different point of view.
Bend in the Rift rips at a decidedly a quicker pace than the typical post-metal fair, with opening track “Careening” clocking in at under two and half minutes. Gone are the obvious quiet/loud/quiet dynamics with no delay effects in sight. Big Pit are moving away from the tropes of post-metal laid down by genre creators like ISIS and Neurosis, aiming to find something of their own in the genre’s dark swirl.
Perhaps what is most unique about Big Pit is their choice of tempo, eschewing the plodding norm of most post metal and finding catharsis in the full swing of speedy syncopation. Whether it’s the Intronaut-esque drum rhythms at the beginning of “Hole is Deep” or swing of “Hazafelé,” Bend in the Rift is doing a lot rhythmically. The best example of this low-end switch up comes on the title track — a bass break in the middle of the track completely alters the tempo, shifting the course of the song and taking it somewhere entirely new. The result is total release, the band carving a new space for themselves between the riffs.
While Big Pit do some of their best work moving against the norms of the subgenre, “Slur” finds them in conversation with the scene’s current sound, touching on the sound of fellow boundary pushers Chat Pile. With its spoken word vocal delivery in the middle, the song erupts into an anxious wall of sounds — it’s a great bit of cross-band synergy while also turning the moment into something that’s completely their own.
The riffs on Bend in the Rift feel straight up positive and uplifting. Whether it’s the major lead line on “Careening” or the major chord change on “Bend in the Rift,” every sound that Big Pit make feels surprisingly joyous. Figuring out what you don’t want to be often leads one to discover what they want to become — Bend in the Rift sees Big Pit finding themselves in real time.