SÂVER Mesmerize With Ambitiously Monstrous Sludge/Doom(And More!) Hybrid Debut

SÂVER’s new album They Came With Sunlight feels like a masterclass in making physically heavy music emotionally sinister and captivating at the same time. Rather than only affecting your bodily energy, the band’s intense metal twists its way right into your mind where it makes itself right at home, an unnerving scowl on its face the whole time while questions like whether this guest will ever leave remain swirling.

Altogether, the album proves a thrilling experience. The band utilize instrumentation that while monstrously thundering and heavy, never feels like it gets out of their hands. Every note feels carefully controlled, underscored by the occasions on which SÂVER dip into meditative doom metal textures. They also use a range from massive sludge metal to spacey ambiance with ease, all tied together by the relentless, clearly urgent drive forward right into the listener’s psyche. The music doesn’t linger and circle around itself so much as even in its most intentionally muddled moments, the strange monster at the core feels like it continues groveling for a way forward.

The music feels like it represents brute reality, in a sense, and that “reality” can prove more menacing than it might seem at first glance. We are a part of that equation, so SÂVER include emotionally unsettling, unstable progressions to captivate the listener, but they also include sonically monstrous metal demonstrating just how far in over our heads we might really be while waddling around on this thing called Earth.

Strangely enough, the picture can prove inspiring and energizing, ensuring SÂVER have tapped into a fanbase with their work. If you’re looking to get kicked out of your mental comfort zone, They Came With Sunlight is the album for you. SÂVER offer their own very unique touches to the styles they work with, allowing a sense of soundscape to permeate their work at times, although that sonic environment feels tied more to a place between the worlds of nature and industrialization than it’s hitched to one or the other. An almost fantastical “horror” element peeks from around the corners of their work at times. They’ve carved a special crevice for themselves to operate as a band and for listeners to join alongside them.

5/5 Stars

Listen below via Bandcamp. The full album is available March 8 via Pelagic Records.