ninehertz

The pedigree of Tir’s members’ previous outfits is enough alone to generate excitement for this release, particularly for anyone with any degree of sight on the Welsh doom underground of this century; bands you’ll know and love including Taint, Haast, Kong Lives and Spider Kitten.

The Newport quintet describe themselves simply as “a post metal band from South Wales” which doesn’t tell the whole story of what you find in this three-track, 26-minute EP. Pocket Meat kicks things off with a crawling bass line and grouchy vocal, then tempered by light-bringing synths, developing towards a post-rock calmness. It moves and explores, the synths ever twinkling. It feels different to what you might expect or from anything else in similar realms, which is a good thing.

After another gentle aura of calm beginning, the vocals launch out of Voyager, initially supporting a weighty Neurosis manner, then, as they turn to a cleaner singing voice somewhere between Mastodon and latter day Baroness. Longer passages of introspective post-rock follow, only for that to burst again with their impressive heavier end, used sparingly and as a result more effectively.

There is a lovely ambient nature to the record, never more so than the first 90 seconds of the closing Anwar, before a bulky stomping riff shatters the peace. The track is a journey between two states, one agitated and the other free flowing calm, before they coalesce into one in an expansive grandiosity familiar to anyone who knows of Haast’s works in particular.

These are true creatives in our doom underground, constantly restless and with a need to write and record written into their bones. Of course this was going to be good, but that it is a little different from the collective past endeavours shows they have still have the desire for growth and to expand their range.