HIGH ON FIRE — Luminiferous (review)

HIGH ON FIRE — Luminiferous album cover Album · 2015 · Stoner Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
UMUR
"Luminiferous" is the 7th full-length studio album by US sludge/stoner metal act High on Fire. The album was released through eOne Music in June 2015. It´s the successor to "De Vermis Mysteriis" from 2012. Like it´s predecessor "Luminiferous" was also produced by Kurt Ballou (Converge). The three years between albums have been spend touring, but lead vocalist/guitarist Matt Pike also had a break from band activities while he was receiving treatment for alcoholism.

Stylistically the music on "Luminiferous" features few surprises if you´re already familiar with High on Fire´s brand of metal. It´s a combination of stoner doom, sludge, heavy metal, and thrash metal and cannot really be tagged any of those without stepping on some genre elitist toes. What has always been special about High on Fire is not so much their music though, but the way they perform it. They know exactly how to deliver their brick heavy riffs and beats (and occasionally faster ones too) with conviction and burning passion. Matt Pike´s raw voice and rough vocal delivery is also a trademark. And thankfully nothing has changed on "Luminiferous" in that regard.

The material on the 9 track, 53:44 minutes long album is generally well written, although I could have wished for more memorable hooks. Just a bit more melody in the vocal department could have made that happen. When Matt Pike sings a bit more melodic than usual on tracks like "The Falconist" and "The Cave" you can really hear how much that brings to the music. On the other hand it´s also nice to hear him yell and scream his way through faster-paced and aggressive tracks like "The Black Plot", the title track, and "Slave the Hive". The latter is one of the more thrash metal oriented tracks on the album.

"Luminiferous" is well produced, although I personally don´t think Kurt Ballou is the right producer for High on Fire (and that´s nothing personal against Ballou, who is a great producer and has produced other artists with great success). I think their music would prosper from a more organic toned sound production, than the productions which grace both this album and it´s predecessor. That´s of course an aquired taste though, and objectively the sound production is professional and suits the music well.

High on Fire is a remarkably consistent act and they´ve never released a sub par album. That trend continues on "Luminiferous", which is another quality release to the collection. Personally I could have wished for a bit more development of sound between albums, but the band give their fans what they want and it´s hard to argue against that. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.
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