relapse, return

Returning today to eMusic: Relapse Records, pioneering Philly metal/hardcore label that’s home to harrowing bands like Nile, High on Fire, Dillinger Escape Plan and Brutal Truth.

Relapse joins eMusic’s generally excellent stable of extreme/black metal labels, among which Candlelight and Moribund — home of the terrifically evil Craft and Sargeist — deserve special mention. Both of those labels specialize in the Satanic, but anyone with a jones for drop-tuning but an uncertainty about the dark side should investigate the absolutely-essential Psychosurgery from Christian thrash band Tourniquet.

Back to Relapse — the roster is loaded with highlights, but the absolute apex for me is the unrelenting, abandon-all-hope nightmare of Neurosis’ A Sun That Never Sets. It’s metal in sound, but operatic in scope. Instead of coming quick and brutal, the riffs are spaced out into isolated whallops. Long passages of quiet, mournful guitar give way to the excruciating churn, vocalists Scott Kelly and Steve Von Til croaking and wailing against the tumult. It’s like a bleak-metal gateway drug, mixing elements of extremity in with instrumental passages that are downright elegant. Imagine A Night at the Opera played on a dying Walkman and you’re getting close.