During an early spin of Paired Sentinels, the fifth full-length album from Chicago’s Anatomy of Habit, a question-so-stupid-I-now-must-ask-it-in-public occurred to me: Does post-metal have anything to do with post-punk? If we really want to turn our mental deli-slicers to the finest setting, what I’m really trying to parse is something like “is post-metal a derivation of metal that is analogous to post-punk? Or is it meant to be a metalized version of post-punk?” Take this all with a grain of salt, of course, because metal sub-genres are largely devised post-facto by critics as a lexical shortcut and thus don’t teach us much at all about what inspires artists creatively. What post-punk has to do with post-metal doesn’t really matter, but the fact that Anatomy of Habit got me thinking about that connection kind of does.
Pull at this thread until it’s taut and what you’ll find at the other end isn’t Black Sabbath, it’s Joy Division. This journey to Manchester by way of The Second City lasts just a bit longer than a minute before the ‘eavy hammer falls for the first time, but it establishes a durable vibe. Anatomy of Habit do not sound like they play metal with post-punk flourishes; they sound like they play deeply rooted post-punk that ought to appeal to metalheads by dint of its heaviness.
Most importantly, the band can play.
While the compositions draft sketches of cold, industrial cityscapes, the performances themselves are pleasingly warm and lived in. Check out “The Importance of Risk,” a slow burner terraformed around the interplay between metal percussionist Isidio Reyes and drummer Skyler Rowe, the former laying down a clattering backbeat while the latter weaves a tribal pattern around it. Down-tuned power-chords repeatedly threaten to bring the track to peak intensity, only to pull back and make space for a recurring melodic bass figure to reveal itself as the true centerpiece. For me, this kind of stuff is so satisfying on a musical level and so inviting of repeat listens that it makes any game of pin the subgenre on the donkey feel kind of superfluous. Post-Metal? Metallic Post-Punk? Avant Post-Punk Doom? None of it matters as much as the fact that Anatomy of Habit are a sound and cohesive group of performers.
In total, Paired Sentinels comprises four tracks, and you’ll notice I’ve mentioned the two that run shorter than 10 minutes. The two longer pieces, “Conditions for Freedom” (13:41) and “Paired Sentinels” (13:33) will test your patience a bit more than the shorter tunes, but the payoff for close attention may be even more rewarding. “Conditions for Freedom,” in particular, is a trance-inducing waltz that walks precipitously close to the edge of combustion during the first half of its run-time before indulging in a free-form collapse for the duration of its second half. Closer “Paired Sentinels” functions either as a necessary exhale after the preceding 30 minutes of persistently ratcheting intensity or a mild comedown from a series of relative highs. In the right setting, my feeling is that it’s an appropriate wind-down, but in these highly distracted times, I empathize with listeners who will simply tune as the track fades away.
I spent perhaps too much time here dwelling on genre here, but what’s truly interesting to me is not what shoe best fits Anatomy of Habit, but how they walk their walk. Rather than employing the batch of genre tropes available in the post-metal starter pack, Anatomy of Habit sound like a group of ol’ fuckers whose collective record collection probably includes Closer, Streetcleaner, Filth, Journey Through a Body and Extremities, Dirt and Various Repressed Emotions. Now, having functioned as a stable lineup for three consecutive albums, they’re operating from the same set of first principles that produced an album like Times of Grace, as opposed to cribbing from that album directly. But what it really sounds like is an album only Anatomy of Habit could make.
