Hippotraktor
Annihilist
82点相当 Still Listening
80点相当 Angry Metal Guy
ベルギーのバンド
From the off, it’s evident that Hippotraktor have released something special here. ‘I Breathe. I Am.’ pulls you into an immediate onslaught of heaviness that establishes you’re in good hands. The Belgian outfit keep the rhythms shifting beneath a wall of distorted guitars, with Stefan De Graef’s vocals crashing against them like waves against a cliff’s edge in a winter storm. That intensity continues into ‘Courageous Apathy’. These aren’t short songs, yet they never outstay their welcome. One second, there’s a break in the storm that allows you to come up for air, but De Graef’s shifts between clean singing and growling vocals mean the respite rarely lasts long.
There are few bands doing more interesting things with djent, prog and post-metal at the moment, and Hippotraktor’s technical skill is on full display. ‘Courageous Apathy’ crashes down with thunder before we’re thrust into the two previously released singles, ‘Builder of Eden’ and ‘Oblivion Walker’. The former features a guest appearance from former The Ocean vocalist Loïc Rossetti, adding another voice to the intensity. ‘Builder of Eden’ assaults the senses at every turn, driven by a rhythmic weight that never quite settles. Elsewhere, particularly on ‘Everything is Permissible’, the band dip into Karnivool territory. Their ability to move between restraint and outright force keeps these songs varied, even when the heaviness threatens to swallow everything.