TOUCH THE SPIDER! (Dead@Last) CD
This is my first full-length contact with Touch The Spider! of whom I knew a couple of songs and clips from the internet. For those of you who have not heard from Touch The Spider!, they are a two-man project that is rather productive as this is their fourth album already and every now and then they let the listener have the chance to listen to remixes and stuff on their internet presence. Musically there are quite a few styles that flow into the dark and doomy sonic world of Touch The Spider!. The root of it all is Doom, no question whatsoever. Be it slow as fuck like in 'Exit' or more mid-tempo based. But there is a bit more in the sound. Here and there we find a slight gothic feel in the music or in the vocals, when they are delivered in a mixture of singing and ritualistic speech.
Hints of 70s Rock and Black Metal shine through from time to time, but they are never dominant. The guys like working with effects on the vocals as well, be it a slight distortion, echo effects or other stuff. This helps to get a bit of diversity as otherwise the limited range would become a bit boring I suppose. A song like 'All Dead', which starts with a minimalist, melodic, more clean guitar part before switching into a real heavily distorted slow mo riff, shows equally where to find the strength and weakness of Touch The Spider!. They play with these different styles which I really dig, but in the end that song (like most songs) gets along with a minimalist arrangement of not more than two riffs and a little guitar melody, but that's it. Most of their songs work like that as, for example, the title track or 'Telepathy'. The riffs are heavy but nothing special obviously; the melodies are simple while the arrangements do not really surprise. If you like your music more minimalistic (I know, I repeat me), but cannot stand another drone album then Touch The Spider! is probably your thing.
Do not get me wrong, I dig tracks such as 'Depressive Season', but some others less even though the overall formula does not change too much in that relevant track. Maybe it is because there seems to be more going on in that song than in others. Another one I really like mainly because of the cool main riff is 'Black Roof Village'. But I recommend to listen to a few songs from the band on the net to see if you can get along with Touch The Spider!’s approach to heavy doomy music. At least the band does not make the mistake to let their songs go too long. The fact that the album does not reach the 50-minute mark though it features 13 cuts should tell everything about that. Touch The Spider! are a special band. If you search for something special, they might be your next best find.
(Thorsten Frahling)