Plaguewielder - Covenant Death

Angry Metal Guy 40

I reckon most of you are familiar with the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none.” Some of you may even say the full version is supposed to follow up with “but better than a master of one,” though this is a modern addition, not a historical version. In music, things aren’t so cut and dry. With some bands, the focus brought by doing one thing well serves the music better; other artists seem to think that the more eclectic their influences the better. Plaguewielder seems to be more of a latter mind; searching across the web reveals tags relating the band to sludge, black metal, doom, atmospheric metal, post-metal and so on. But on their third outing, Covenant Death, is the Ohio quartet a real jack of all trades?

Not exactly. Plaguewielder is a band with an identity crisis. The lead guitar jangles, echoes and reverberates in a fashion that sometimes reminds of gothic metal and sometimes of atmospheric black metal, yet frequently tries to handle the melody in a more traditional sense than such a description would invoke. The drums can’t seem to make up their mind between death metal and industrial metal, between free-flowing gallops and relentless staccato beatdowns. The bass is practically subterranean, in the sense that it’s muddy and difficult to find without a shovel, and the rhythm guitars are so atmospheric they often seem to forget about the concept of riffs entirely. Worst of all are the vocals, which employ the muscular throat-shout of hardcore or sludge and attempt to convey the sort of harrowing mood that’s ordinarily the territory of black metal. The result sounds more sad and frustrated than tormented, unfortunately.

Covenant Death by Plaguewielder

Now, I’m all for mixing genres. I love bands that can combine unexpected sounds and moods and make them work. But the more dispersed the components, the more difficult to unify them, and though I question whether it was deliberate, Plaguewielder has picked polar opposite parts that don’t make sense together. The vocals have an aggressive texture that doesn’t gel with the mostly semi-melancholic guitars and atmospheric layering, which in turn doesn’t get along when the drums move to overeager blasting. The production exacerbates the issue, with a flabby, muddy sound that homogenizes the guitars and bass while turning the volume up on the vocals and drums, with the latter especially overpowering when the rhythmic nailgun starts firing spikes into your skull.

As to avoid this entire article being a total downer, though, it should be said that the band is not entirely devoid of talent. When they foregoe their tendency to try and do three different things at once, there’s clearly traces of excellence to be found. “At Night They Roam” has a great evil tremolo that swoops over the chorus, and the second half of “A Death That Knows No End” is easily the highlight of the album, with multiple layers of cascading guitars colliding in spectacular fashion. Other such unexpected moments of stupendousness lay scattered across the album, but all of them require the vocals to be quiet, which they are not nearly often enough, and the drums not to go into overdrive, which they far too often do.

So Plaguewielder are clearly not the jack of all trades they may have attempted to be. Some elements clash with others, the vocals are subpar for any style and the production seems to highlight the flaws and muddle up their better qualities. Yet there is promise, deep down, occasionally bubbling to the surface. If the band can identify their best parts, focus on them, and excise the poorer material, there’s good, maybe even great music in their future. Covenant Death is too bogged down to get anywhere near, however.

Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Disorder Recordings
Websites: plaguewielderohio.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/plaguewielderoh
Releases Worldwide: April 2nd, 2021

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