Biledriver - Let the Sun Swallow All

Angry Metal Guy

It was hard to know what to expect from Let the Sun Swallow All. Biledriver’s Bandcamp page states that they “play a variety of metal, the genre of which we are eternally uncertain.” While broadly categorizable as a mixture of sludge and post-metal, the band’s confession is fairly accurate. Even the cover art is obtusely abstract (though rather nice). This is their debut, and sees the geographically disparate members—spanning Canada, the US, the UK, and Sweden—combine forces in a sometimes savage, sometimes somber series of sounds. Recorded separately in each’s home studio, though you wouldn’t really know it, there is something quite charming about it, and the band’s own dry sense of humor about their work, that nonetheless doesn’t detract from its most furious and profound moments.

Biledriver really don’t want to be pinned down genre-wise. Elements across the record span (post-) black (“This Gentle Cold,” “Hollow be Thy Name,” “Dying Embers”), hardcore (“A Feast for Rats,” “Hollow…”), doom (“This Gentle Cold,” title track), and post-rock (“This…,” “The Last Great Day,” title track). Yet the album does possess two distinct moods: gritty metallic-hardcore-driven anger, and melancholic post-metal-led introspection, and these poles thus dictate the main musical thrusts. Biledriver can execute both compellingly, with vocalist Jonah Robertson managing to evoke menacing rage with harsh barks, as forlorn desperation with wailing shrieks and gloomy cleans, and axe (Taylor Batory, Lily Shapcott) and drumstick(Jonatan Edqvist)-wielders alike providing violent and graceful soundscapes with equal strength. But it’s in the drawing together of these styles that the group falter, with LtSSA lacking crucial cohesive threads and so feeling more than a little awkward.

Let The Sun Swallow All by Biledriver

LtSSA’s stylistic decoherence is the more frustrating for how good most of the material is, in isolation. The manic, tripping tempos and lurching guitar refrains of “Hollow…” are slick and fun, and the mournful melodies that arise in echoing plucks and crescendoing tremolos (“This Gentle Cold,” “Dying Embers,” title track) are stirring and beautiful. Listeners will be divided by taste on the competing energies, but to me, the more convincing is the atmospheric, melancholic side, which nonetheless leaves room for some biting post-black. This is best exemplified by the consecutive closers “The Last Great Day” and the title track. The reverberating piano and spoken word of the former are intensely, surprisingly sad, while the latter’s shifts into layered, escalating minor refrains are incredibly poignant, especially when combined with heartfelt, intensifying screams. But speaking of surprising, the feedback whine and drum-tumbling entrance of “A Feast for Rats” following the doomy post-metal expanse of opener “This Gentle Cold” was bamboozling on first listen, and never stopped feeling jarring. While there’s something in the guitar tone, and the particular tilt of the screams that does match between them—and this goes generally for the differing approaches across the album—I can’t help but see the frequent careening into a new direction as a shame, one that drains the mood to replace it with bitterness that the listener is not ready for.

The listening experience is not pure whiplash, however. Extended sections of solemnity and grace (such as the aforementioned closing tracks) prove this, but so do the notable ways that Biledriver do blend their sounds. “Dying Embers” provides a kind of bridge between more hardcore and more post-black-infused aspects, with its punchy tremolo refrain repeated in “The Last…”‘s gentle piano, and off-kilter, shifting tempos. It’s not the strongest cut, but it has promise and is the kind of thing that works naturally and compellingly with the delicacy of the final tracks. The overall unvarnished feel to the guitars throughout creates an affinity between the varied attitudes, though it does sometimes have a tendency to sap the power from otherwise dramatic and emotional melodic themes. Contrasting this is the cinematic atmosphere of the most beautiful moments, which shows again a way in which Biledriver’s personalities could merge, as well as the generally dextrous and spacious production.

LtSSA ambushed me with the wonky way they mixed their styles, but also the amount of emotion they were able to draw out of them. Parts of this album are truly stirring and brilliant, but the whole thing lacks that synergy that would make it shine. But we must remember that this is only the beginning of Biledriver, and they show definite promise.

Rating: Mixed
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: WAV
Label: Self-Release
Websites: biledriver.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/people/Biledriver
Releases Worldwide: October 13th, 2023

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