ninehertz

For a time, it felt like every other oddball and unusual release that would reach our ears was arising from Portland. Whilst that’s dropped off somewhat, there has always been a steady stream of bands from the Oregon city creating something chaotic. Coffin Apartment are the perfect example. There’s a lot to unpack from Lesion Plea but it is well worth the effort.

There are a couple or more times listening you think you have them nailed down in terms of genre and what they’re trying to achieve, only for that to be disproven a track later. That brings its own excitement, already high from the quality within.

You’re thrown off track from the first to second track alone. The opener is a melting pot of discordant riffs and sludgey shrieked vocals, a combination that is somehow both unsettling and insanely catchy, all encased within a death and doom influenced hardcore shell. So far, so very good. Six more tracks like this and I’ll be happy. Then Evade the Knife follows and there’s a saxophone casually leading it into Ulver’s Perdition City style soundscapes, before a post-rock and electronic vibe, followed by a brief trad metal venture and death vocals.

The thing is, despite being more than happy with where it was aiming, I’m not sad for the leftfield change – it is equally as impressive here, and the intrigue surrounding it has shot up. From there, you’ll find church bells and post-hardcore, and a moment where I’m dreaming that it’ll twist into some Imperial Triumphant extravagance or Five the Hierophant styled drones (before – of course – turning goth-post-punk).

The title track returns to a purer metal sound – from black into death with a touch of cosmic technicality to it, dark and dense and excellent, discordancy of a high order that ends on an even better note with a rumbling death-doom finale. Where next? There are swampy vocals and screamed hardcore and a final track of death punk of a ramshackle nature.

What to make of that then? It takes a minute to get your head around it. But having settled, you realise this is a special album for two macro-level reasons – the wild swings work, somehow, whether knotted together by the hardcore undercurrent or even the saxophone, each track compliments the next unexpectedly. And mostly because each new track, each new venture sounds superb, no matter what they try their hand at.