COALESCE: O.D. ON OXEP
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 1:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
Three cheers for Coalesce: they took a decade in between 0:12 Revolution in Just Listening and this year’s killer Ox, but now they’re making up for lost time.
OXEP, a new, seven-song EP which I’m guessing consists of songs that were recorded during the Ox sessions and just didn’t make the final cut for whatever reason, comes out November 10 on Relapse, but Lambgoat is streaming it right now. So if it’s another ten years ’til the band makes another full-length, at least we got an abundance of Coalesce in ‘09.
Now go give it a listen.
-AR
Where the hell does the time go? The year is more than half over already! Sheesh.
Congrats to Mr. Lun, the winner of new Darkane, Devin Townsend and Edguy CDs from 
The name Dave Verellen should mean something to anyone who laments the 2002 breakup of Botch, the esteemed hardcore act whose legacy has made it more popular now than when it was an active unit. As the voice of that group, Verellen deserves partial credit – and perhaps a little blame – for the glut of roaring metalcore vocalists that came in his wake. From a publicity perspective, this influence strengthens the already impressive pedigree of Narrows, his latest band featuring members of noteworthy heavy ensembles such as Unbroken and These Arms Are Snakes. As evidenced by its full-length debut New Distances, the group refuses to rest on its proverbial laurels and instead goes above and beyond its participants’ discographies, yielding something truly exceptional.
Hype can kill a record, or at least wound it at first. I had been told of the supposed greatness of Coalesce’s first record in a decade several times before Axl Rosenberg forwarded it to me last week for review: on the day it leaked back in April, a friend sent me a link to it and feverishly insisted I download it. I did not and forgot about it. Another friend, after hearing it, described it as “really weird, with a lot of stoner sorta parts,” pausing, before adding, “You’ll probably like it a lot.” Then Decibel gave it a 10 out of 10, a grade I’ve personally seen attributed only to Cannibal Corpse’s DVD retrospective last year. By the time I was ready to hear it, there was no way it could meet the expectation set for it unless it came with a solid gold statue of Betty White wrestling a hyrda with a sound similar to that. I was seemingly set up for disappointment – a legacy record that hit the desks and hard drives of folks with a weak spot for the band due to the part they played in their youth? – and it wouldn’t be as good as, say, Cynic’s Traced in Air or another of metal’s precious few decent comebacks. After a decade of bands ripping off Coalesce, how could anything they do sound fresh, let alone pull off anything that could stand up to their mythic catalog?
