Wasteland Haze - "Tales From The Wasteland Chapter I: Lonestar"
Düsseldorf-based instrumental metal trio Wasteland Haze is back with their newest sonic narrative: Tales From The Wasteland Chapter I: Lonestar.
Leading up to this album, the band released three singles from it: Pathfinder (The Great Hunt), Handful Of Dust, and Wstlnd Messiah, each of which did a spectacular job of giving the listener more clues as to how the full story would unfold without giving away too much in the process. This doesn't come as a surprise knowing that Wasteland Haze tried a new approach to songwriting for this release: they wrote the story first and then composed the music with the tale freshly floating around in their heads, leading to an even more vivid version of the band's trademark yarn spinning.
Wasteland Haze - Tales From The Wasteland Chapter I: Lonestar
While Lonestar is an Italian-Western revenge story, it's set in a futuristic wasteland where interpersonal conflicts are complicated by the struggle for survival. A few sound clips dotted throughout the album do aid listener comprehension to some degree, but as always, Wasteland Haze does an outstanding job of transmitting these details via music alone. True to form, the band utilizes a complex but seamless blend of stoner metal, doom, and post rock/metal, but Lonestar is arguably the trio's grittiest release to date (perfectly demonstrated on one of my favorite tracks, Handful Of Dust). These rougher textures sonically depict scenes of parched landscapes, barren wastelands, pockets of ruin, and lost civilizations. Conversely, interludes of light and airy, vast atmospheres via a focus on post metal communicate not only intense emotions that the story's conflict brings about for the main character, but it also smacks strongly of longing: memories and increasingly faint reminders of what once was, and the harsh reality that this ravaged world is the "new normal".
On Tales From The Wasteland Chapter I: Lonestar, Wasteland Haze proves that they are never content to stagnate, confidently challenging the bounds of their creativity, musicianship, and storytelling abilities by delivering their most cinematic, stirring release to date.
You can order a colored (limited edition) or black vinyl copy of Lonestar via the one and only Clostridium Records here!
More About Wasteland Haze
You can follow Wasteland Haze and listen to their music at the following links:
A massive thank you to the band for the promo! 
Comments
Post a Comment