Guest
Simplicity, patience and pacing colliding with power, density and unrelenting volume Building off the strength of their 2019 debut Etch, Belgium’s Turpentine Valley continue their careful navigation of light, dark, and the spaces just between on their new record Alder. Their impetus is clearly the rugged, muscular terrain of post-metal, and the force of their delivery honors the legacy of that style. But what distinguishes them are the subtle explorations of fairer sensibilities that emerge from the shadows every so often, granting valuable additional dimension, and offering the listener brief but crucial respite from the otherwise considerable weight of these compositions. This quality can be seen hard at work on the single “Parabel,” which is firmly rooted in a rugged, sludgy midtempo driven by thick bass, but at the same time, there is a hazy, dreamy guitar melody floating over everything else, attaching a gracefulness to what is an otherwise aggressive passage. The band intermittently
