If you are new to High on Fire, here is the broad-brush stroke. Formed in 1998. Mike Pike is a real like barbarian and is the band's frontman and founder, also plays guitar for Sleep. High on Fire won the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance with their song "Electric Messiah”. So, they are known and only perfecting their craft.
Guitarist/vocalist Matt Pike bass player George Rice, and drummer Des Sense have returned with a monster. Baghdad kicks the beast off with an Orange fuzz and a thundering chant that hammers home that Pike and friends have returned to take whatever they want. The pulsating track builds with a chant that eventually unloads with Des rattling off some kicks with thunder. At the three-minute mark chaos ensues rhythmic riffs and a legendary jam band like solo from Pike. Metal jam band. A crushing first offering.
10,000 Years is a highlight of not only the album, but of High on Fire’s career. The track starts off slow with a thumping bass and the aura of brutality that is to come. HUGE riffs enter and all you can see is barbarians decapitating all who defy them Pike leaves his naysayers heads on a pike. The tones of the guitars cut deep. The bass had monster cards. The drums pack a wallop. A slow burn of a song that will delight doom and stoner fans alike.
The next track that caught my attention was Last. Structurally it has a Corrosion of Conformity feel to it, but Pike makes sure to make everything heavy as possible. His vocals on this track take on a King Buzzo sound. Authoritative as he barks out words that are everything from Dungeons and Dragons to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series:
“And you crawled in the room with the serpent
And they sucked from your body the poison
Then the Cyclops arrived there to warn you
And the Whore entered in to adore you
Seems like life has dawned to fade away
Ice bards' ship the frozen bodies
And the ones in the Son are immortal
Then the skeleton hands you the needle
You were born to this day from the cradle
Seems like life dawned to fade away
Reaper's scythe harvest time is upon you
No more use for abuse in this body
Father Time gives the wings now to free you
In the coffin your destiny's beat you”
Brilliant.
Master f Fists is testosterone in audio form. Barrages of fuzzy riffs create a wall of sound. Sonically enticing solos lead the listener through a maze of jam band metal mastery. The track closes to a rhythmic jam of meandering solos with George and Rick providing the spine to an absolute mind-altering track.
I wish I smoked. This would be a track I would visit in an altered state. Sadly, I get paranoid so I will blast this track for my 9-year-old in the car and together we will pretend to be barbarians on a spaceship far from earth. Matt Pike is a metal god, just not everyone knows it…. yet.
8 out of 10: another dominant offering from High on Fire
-Derek
Watch Pike kill Baghdad on this UG footage. Raw as all fuck!
