Ridiculously downtuned Switzerland based quintet Life’s December have an array of hefty sounds on their new album Colder. The heavy flow of righteous chugging is in fact so deep and so voluminous that at one point I thought my speakers were reduced to farting (most notably on title track Colder and World of Blame.) These guys are very noisy.
Worn around the edges, the noise works in their favour by accentuating the significance of the harsh tones and melodies, all of which are haunting and backed up with a strong rhythm while they’re given their own space in the mix the production occasionally makes the room sound too quiet with the atmosphere settling before attacking again with the same vigor. It’s very djent.
With keys in support of riffing, practiced in a manner that emphasizes the evocative percussion, there’s a lot of play on this album. However they’re not the only sounds on the album that add to this effect. The harmonics tuning out of the guitar take high end frequencies into new dimensions while inducing fugue.
The production on Colder is packed to bursting adding to its intensity. There are a few places where the equalization is poorly implemented and effectively mutes some of the dirty and dense frequencies. An unfortunate predicament because the actual songs themselves are raw past their limits. Further those boundaries and a very conscious album with a life of its own is dancing in the dark.
6/10
