![]() ![]() The parts generally work, but they rarely work together. It's not that these 40 minutes are too extreme or overly dependent on too many ideas it's that Dragged into Sunlight haven't found out how to synthesize their best impulses and broad ambitions into a whole. These bursts renew Hatred for Mankind's promise of fresh invective.īut by and large, Widowmaker hoists Dragged into Sunlight with their own petard, turning that once-welcome eclecticism and adventurousness into the weapon that disrupts the payoff. And in Part Two, they dart around a serial killer's ramblings, spotlighting the unease as he talks about himself as a mass murderer. A skittering drum solo, for instance, lifts the whole band through a drone and into a phosphorescent surge during another relatively calm pass, the guitar’s tone and patience are enviable, the slowly rising riff setting a paradoxically grim but inviting scene. Despite Dragged into Sunlight's insistence on being identified as one unit, these moments offer some of the album’s most motivated and moving performances. Widowmaker isn't without its rewards: Toward the end of the three-part suite, the band repeatedly cycles through near-silence (a lugubrious field recording from the Czech Republic's Bone Church circles like a sinister breeze) and the record's most furious bursts. Widowmaker is named for, as the band told The Quietus, a heartache that "builds and builds and your heart is basically exploding." But the album itself is more akin to vertigo, with the stylistic disconnects and sudden switches making the record as a whole forgettable at best and vexing at worst. That's the net effect of Widowmaker, an album that finds Dragged into Sunlight working through strong parts of doom or thrash, noise or drone but never actually welding them into one. It's an interesting piece, but when it ends, Dragged into Sunlight flips a switch of convenience by plowing instantly into the howls and wallops of death metal. For the first 15 minutes, Dragged into Sunlight even does its best Godspeed, weaving a somber guitar around whispers of stately violin, down-the-abyss traces of noise, and recordings of serial killers talking about the rewards of their work. Late last year, talking to Decibel about the just-finished record, the band rolled through a list of Widowmaker touchstones- "It's doom- there are influences from Eyehategod, Grief- but then there's some thrashier elements, and there's a bit of High on Fire, Trap Them, even Om in there, too." Those components are all clearly identifiable here, from Part Three's down-tuned downturn to Part Two's sudden circle pit initiation. Both the process and ambition show as seams here, meaning that these 40 minutes sound like a cycle through influences and an unrealized aspiration to unite them under one release. Due to factors like other jobs, other bands, and the 300-mile geographical spread between the members, Dragged into Sunlight has been working on Widowmaker- a three-part, 40-minute suite intended as one piece of music- for three years. Every time someone pissed you off and you wanted to tear their jaw off, concealed, building and ready to burst at any moment." Who else would you rather rage with? "Imagine each micro-social interaction stuffed into one massive wrecking ball. "Our inspiration is very much a natural creation, spurred from months, if not years, of frustrated murderous intent," the band told Metallomusikum last year. Coupled, however, with Dragged into Sunlight's forthright willingness to not only tour but also discuss its intentions and influences and irritations with the world, they do create a strangely magnetic allure, conjuring the idea of a band allegiant to its name- a dark figure, reluctantly forced into public view to share its grim view of the world. Those conditions certainly aren't new for heavy metal, a genre replete with one-man bands, figure-obscuring robes, and pioneers who've still never performed in public. And when they play live, the musicians turn their backs on the audience, closing themselves to the house to again invoke wonder about just what they’re doing. Like bank robbers on a job or mercenaries on a mission, the British quartet appears uniformly in balaclavas the holes in the fabric are invitations of intrigue about the minds, lives and pasts of the four anonymous members. Considered on image alone, Dragged into Sunlight might be the most fascinating new recruit within extreme metal for the better part of the last decade. ![]()
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