This Sheltering Night

Long running Pennsylvania hardcore act Starkweather, having been around since 1989, must surely be trailblazers for the kind of artsily terrifying metal/hardcore tech-mashups that now-iconic bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan have taken to its extreme. Uncompromisingly hostile and with an ultra-avant-garde, edgier-than-thou aura, the similarities in attitude run through this, making their supposed influence on that band easily believable. Fans will surely be pleased to hear that This Sheltering Night picks up largely where 2005’s devastating Croatan left off, although I think this one is a little more esoteric and difficult to handle.

Despite the above comparison, Starkweather present a very different take on this form of music than that showcased on, say, Option Paralysis., and don’t be misled into expecting the same kind of hyperactive, jolting screech that Dillinger… specialise in. Instead, this is often far slower, more atmospheric and thoughtful, although no less abrasive overall. Often, songs are built around suffocating, dissonant passages of slow, crawling quasi-doom riffs, as with first tune Epiphany. As an opening statement it is imposing; its crashing dischords could almost be Culted, although the curious, warbling lead guitar lines that sound like enraged birdsong put a stop to that. Martyring, has jagged, sludgy grooves that alternate schizophrenically with jangling, off key clean guitar interjections. True to form as we progress through the track, it gets progressively more difficult, as those same bizarre lead lines fizzle away in the background, and sickening, atonal riff crunching begins to give the impression of a Gorguts number collapsing in on itself.

A possible weakness for some will be the clean vocals, which are not exactly common, but do feature at several key points. Broken from Inside, for example, places them centre stage. It starts life a weird, discordant quasi-ballad, in which the sound emitting Rennie Resmini’s lungs is bizarre and striking. His harsh vocals are vicious enough to pass for a death metal frontman but here we are left with awkward bellow like a wounded animal. Funnily enough, the sheer unmitigated discomfort of this tuneless “ballad” translate the vocals into something that makes perfect sense.

This Sheltering Night is a real misfit- in a good way, of course (when have I ever used this term in a bad way?). Seemingly marrying the unredeemable ugliness of the gnarliest death metal bands to the edgy experimentalism of the techy hardcore scene. But in its gathering of the most misshapen textures it can find, and the surliest, scuzziest grooves, it has a personality entirely its own.