It’s been four years since StarGazer released A Great Work of Ages, and the CD still hasn’t left my truck. Granted, there are a lot of CDs in my truck, but A Great Work of Ages has, almost insidiously, joined the ranks of the permanent fixtures, which includes classics such as Reign in Blood, World Downfall, …And Justice For All, Into the Grave and Melissa. These are albums I don’t leave home without. Obviously, I think highly of A Great Work of Ages, and so its long awaited follow-up, A Merging to the Boundless, has a lot to live up to.
One of the most important of the many things I found compelling about A Great Work of Ages was that for all that the album was labeled progressive death metal or avant-garde black/death metal, the progressive elements never threatened to overshadow the traditionally metal aspects. Everything seemed to work together to create a greater whole, and that whole was still very much a metal record. The fact is I don’t give a shit about a band’s artistic vision; I’m only in this for the riffs. I’m not a complete cretin, though; I can be led along on whatever off-the beaten-path excursion a band might embark upon, as long as it’s a short trip and there’s some head-banging metal at the end of it. As it was with A Great Work of Ages, so it is with A Merging to the Boundless: StarGazer always seems to lead me somewhere I want to go.
Progressive though StarGazer might be, A Merging to the Boundless starts out sounding decidedly old-school with “Black Gammon.” The Azagthoth-ian twist to the riffs and the Sandoval-esque pummeling conjure nothing so much as Altars-era Morbid Angel. David Vincent never played bass like that, though. The individual known as The Great Righteous Destroyer is Stargazer’s not-so-secret weapon. The mere fact that his bass playing is clearly audible on this and all prior Stargazer albums is exceptional in and of itself. But even more unusual than its prominent place in the mix is the fact that the bass functions as a second lead instrument, contributing not just amazing fills, but full solos and melodic themes as well. The guitar, with its wider dynamic range and fuller sound, still dominates the album’s more aggressive moments, of which “Black Gammon” is certainly one, but in the mellower passages, the bass and guitar are on practically equal footing.
Track two, “Old Tea,” is one example of the album’s mellower moments. Built around jangly, vaguely dissonant and vaguely sinister guitar figures, the track creates a hypnotic groove through which The Great Righteous Destroyer threads his bass lines like a snake through the leaves on the forest floor. Beneath it all, drummer Selenium drives the track with an agitated pulse and some heavy handed fills that seem to threaten a forthcoming eruption of violence. The band seems on the brink of that eruption about midway through the tack, and Selenium even cuts loose with some blast beats, but “Old Tea” instead develops a more smoothly flowing melodicism in its second half and even features some clean vocals, but in a testament to StarGazer’s restraint, this is the only time they appear on the album.
The mellowness continues with “An Earth Rides its Endless Carousel,” though this track initially forsakes any dissonance or malevolence in favor of an ethereal clean guitar & bass jam that is straight-up beautiful. According to a recent interview, Stargazer recorded most of this album’s basic tracks live in the studio, and while this practice makes the whole album seem much more alive and real than an album stitched together with ProTools, it is in the softer passages where this approach bears the most fruit. There is an organic vitality to the interplay between musicians performing together in the same room, at the same time that just cannot be replicated by artificial means. The sunshine and rainbows don’t linger overlong, however; where “Old Tea” kept the band’s full fury at bay, “An Earth Rides its Endless Carousel” gradually increases in intensity before finally it finally unchains the wolves with a big bold riff and then moves on to a vortex of shifting themes.
The title track, much like “Black Gammon,” is mostly straight death metal and a premium-grade neck-snapper. It is, I think, a testament to Stargazer’s talent that even when employing conventional tactics, the trio’s game is still rock-solid. The band, as a whole, is far greater than the sum of its gimmicks.
Upon my initial listen to A Merging to the Boundless, I feared that the eleven minute track “The Grand Equalizer” might be one instance where StarGazer lost the plot. It is a loose and rambling song that, while full of tasteful playing, never quite seems to get anywhere. Until the final eighty seconds, that is, when the band reveals some of the most triumphant music that the album has to offer, a passage that recalls Iron Maiden at its most glorious. I was a fool to doubt.
The two tracks that close-out A Merging to the Boundless — the energetic “Ride the Everglade of Reogniroro” and the more measured “Incense and Aeolian Chaos” — are both essentially death metal tracks, though each is colored by StarGazer’s unique weirdness and wonderfulness. At about three and four minutes in length, respectively, these tracks reveal another of StarGazer’s virtues: brevity. With the possible exception of “The Grand Equalizer,” none of the tracks on A Merging to the Boundless seem to overstay their welcome. The whole album, in fact, is only 38 minutes long. StarGazer, for all its prowess, rarely overindulges. It’s best to leave the listener wanting more and StarGazer knows it.
In the course of writing this review I have had to come to grips with the fact that Stargazer is far, far better at composing and performing music than I am at writing about it. And so, in the event that the preceding nine-hundred-odd words might not have convinced you that A Merging to the Boundless is worth your time, I’ll put it as directly as I can: Buy this fucking album.
And for the record, A Merging to the Boundless won’t be leaving my truck anytime soon.
