Melbourne's Hotel Wrecking City Traders are back! Well they haven't actually been dormant, but they finally have their new LP Ikiryo (out through the band's Bro Fidelity label) ready to thrash out to the world, a mere six years (?!) after Black Yolk blasted the doors off. Recorded in two days in January, and the tight timeline fits with the leaner, more focused delivery of the five songs on display here. Opener 'Breath' is a power behemoth, holding down some straight-up metal riffs before launching forth like a tightly coiled serpent at the jugular, before dissolving into a doom-lite crawl that shadows Pelican at their most languid. It's these tonal shifts at almost a nanosecond's notice that is the most obvious change up in the duo's arsenal - they are more melodic and in tune with each other's playing due to their tireless touring and shows in Japan. 'Riley' is a sinuous beast that surreptitiously moves into Toby's repetitive groove, the alternations coming from Ben's rolls and fills. 'Dance The Hempen Jig' feels the most like old HWCT (not that anything on Ikiryo is far from the wellspring of the band's oeuvre), albeit in a concise, calibrated form, before the album closes with the darkness of 'Tetryl' and the sprawling title track taking us into the sinister outer spaces. Welcome back, boys.
Get Ikiryo here.
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