Maximum Metal Rating Legend

Black Book Lodge Entering Another Measure Company: Mighty Music Release: 2015 Genre: Stoner, doom Reviewer: Vinaya

A strange, dense listening experience

Entering Another Dimension is more like it. I quite enjoyed this Danish band's Mighty Music debut album, Tundra, so I was quite keen to see what they would do next. Just a year later, they've already dropped this followup, which counts as either a brief LP or a really long EP, if we use vinyl-era terminology (six songs, a little past the forty minute mark). But whereas Tundra immediately had me grooving to the band's rumbling stoner/doom grooves (which, like I said at the time, reminded me of Sahg's similarly superb Delusions Of Grandeur), this album often simply has me scratching my head. Kicking off with almost ten minutes of slow-grooving weirdness called "The Martyr," Entering Another Measure is decidedly weirder, less immediate and definitely less accessible than its effortlessly headbangable predecessor. Despite (perhaps actually because of) this, I have actually found myself listening to Entering Another Measure more than some albums I've enjoyed quite a bit more, trying to penetrate and appreciate its seemingly impenetrable wall of well-crafted but not particularly welcoming riffs and melodies. And despite these repeated listens, not much is sticking, making me feel that either I am being lazy as a listener, or these guys just haven't come up with the goods, songwriting-wise. And I'm still honestly not sure which it is. Perhaps a bit of both. The title track does bring a tad more accessibility than the first couple of tracks, and is perhaps the closest thing to Tundra you'll find on here, but even that song is somewhat lacking when it comes to infectious riffs. And although he doesn't seem to have drastically altered his style, I'm finding Jonny Jonsson's vocals coming across as a tad listless and again, uncommunicative, contributing further to this vague sense of the band lost in some sort of haze of their own making. So basically, I find it a bit lacking in the riff department, and somehow lost in its own world and showing little interest in communicating with Planet Earth. But that's not to say that the band never comes up with anything worthwhile or memorable, with "New Provenance" and the title track showing traces of major creativity in a form that mere mortals can appreciate. In general, Entering Another Measure is a strange, dense listening experience, but one that might be worth partaking in for the open-minded listener who can stomach this vague lack of emotional connectivity I find in the album. I grudgingly accept this followup to their excellent debut, but at the same time kind of hold out hope that they might produce something a tad more listener-friendly next time.