Let The Night Roar
Self Titled
6.3
"Let the Night Roar." Kinda sounds like a slogan for a malt liquor (granted a very METAL malt liquor). Thankfully these guys are better than that. But what this band actually does sound like is High on Fire, and they’re not better than them. This self titled debut hits the mark when it comes to emulating Pike and Co.’s patented filthy, churning vitriol. The vocals are pretty much straight up Pike-ism. The viscous, resin coated riffs alternately swing with savage groove and pummel with abandon, and the drums often lean on skull-caving, war dance tribalisms. In other words–you’ve heard this album before, just with a more familiar name and picture on the jacket. Thing is, even that said, Let the Night Roar ain’t a bad little album. They ply their derivative arts with enough adeptness and enthusiasm that it’s hard to dismiss the album, yet it invariably pales in comparison to the band to whom they so loyally pay tribute.
Of course, there is nothing new under the sun, and in biting High on Fire Let the Night Roar by extension show influence to those that came before Pike, among others the head bobbing doomy riffs of vintage Sabbath and the locomotive propulsion of Motorhead. Both are showcased in "Kill Yourself," which opens with a smoky, nearly Electric Wizard-like doom stomp before shifting into redlined primal teeth gnashing a la "Devilution". The bobbing, mystic bass work in "Sleep" (aptly named!) is textbook Al Cisneros, bassman for Pike’s pre-HOF Sleep and one fourth of supergroup behemoth Shrinebuilder. Enough said, Let the Night Roar sticks religiously to the blueprints created by their elders, and in doing so, offer worthy tribute. If you live and die for the names in bold on this page, and you’re after more of the same, you could do worse than this one. Fun, but redundant.
