High On Fire- Cometh the Storm Album Review (w/ bonus d12 table of Barbarian Foe-Slaying Weapons!)
High On Fire is one of the most reliably awesome metal bands around. They're the long-lived project of Matt Pike, the guitar master of Sleep, worshiper of Lemmy and High Weedian priest of all things stoner, sludge and doom. Pike is a master of the crunchy riff, the transcendent arcane pulp fantasy lyric, the gruff orcish berserker growl and battlecry. Cometh The Storm is the band's 9th record and one of their most cohesive. High On Fire always takes a different direction on each album, with their last, Electric Messiah , being a departure from the mid-tempo, crunchy sound in favor of a Motorhead and thrash-esque style. Messiah was not my bowl of weed, though I respect it. With Cometh The Storm , High On Fire is back with a rager of heavy, head-nodding riffs and horn-throwing solos. To me it sounds like a fusion of Blessed Black Wings and De Vermis Mysteriis , with a minor nod towards his bandmate Al Cisneros's OM's middle-eastern sound in the instrumental track Kira...