Album Review: "Sins Remain" by Blackhour

Sins Remain

I love a story, an angle, an anything to get me the least bit interested in anything.

There are at a minimum of 478,753 different things of every single thing that you like.

What about a band draws you in away from the other 478,752? For me, it can be anything.

Today's subjects are from Pakistan.

In the past I've done music from Algeria, Pakistan, India, and even Iran. The aspect of a band playing western music, especially metal, from somewhere that we wouldn't expect makes me all the more interested.

Not as a forbidden fruit aspect, but how do they envision this music? How do they make it?

Well, Blackhour is from Pakistan. There's very little I can tell you about this country besides that the capital is Islamabad. I know they're a Middle Eastern country and often involved in a border dispute with India...

Blackhour

The reason why I spun this album is because they're from Pakistan and not England or Germany or even the USA.

What came out of the speakers however, was pure 70's and 80's England, but with a splash of Tool.

The vocals have a strong Tool influence, but even though I hate Tool with a passion, I found myself being totally okay with this. This band is a lot more than just the vocals.

The uptempo music is back boned by a steady drum beat that, though using double bass, never turns the songs in track meets and allows the band to live and breathe. There's also a great interpretation of the glassy sound pioneered by Vinnie Paul at work.

The guitars are raw and pretty uneffected. Besides distortion and wah, there's not a whole lot going on. Their pedals are their fingers. In a world full of guitarists whose vocabularies couldn't fill a Dr. Seuss book, Blackhour's axemen could fill the Princeston Library.

Following them must be hard.

Due to their extensive ability to create sound and melody, their solos soar well past melodic, into epic. The songs start and stop on a dime featuring flowing musical movements. There are only six tracks on this album, but don't let that fool you, some of the songs exceed nine minutes.

Blackhour knows who they are and they put it down on tape. Now the rest of the world needs to meet them.

Release: 1/5/16
Genre: Progressive Metal
Label: Transcending Obscurity
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