Nether Regions - Into the Breach

When Nether Regions from Portland crossed my desk this weekend I looked over the bio sheet with a passing interest. After all, I get so many CD’s and files to review that it’s hard to keep track at times. I must say, some of the influences cited in said bio intrigued me to no end. I mean, Joy Division, Black Sabbath, the Beatles and black metal? In one sitting? I thought I was one of the only mutts out there that combined such differing points of entry. I’m sure Ian Curtis and Per Ohlin are sitting around wherever they might be right now having a laugh and creating new, horribly depressing tunes.

Perhaps not.

Well, Into the Breach is the modus operandi in front of me at the moment and while I’m not exactly sure what this ‘dirge-metal’ is or why we feel the need to add yet another silly post-genre label to an already overcrowded fray, but I don’t judge a band on a label or tag. That said, Nether Regions is, out of the gate, a down-tempo, often ugly musical venture that has some very stoic riffs from young Kyle Bates that harkens back to the Master of Reality era of Sabbath; there’s no denying the intensity of the guitar work on this album and if he’s not careful his name will be well-known in no time. I can certainly feel the doom metal cloud hovering overhead like a dangerous storm cloud, and when the power chords give way to clean, eerily haunting passages as found in “Your Name is Madness” the album really takes on a different color, and not a bad one at that. I also am a big fan of the bass work here; without overly thumping or needing to be overemphasized, it settles nicely in its assigned niche and sounds terrific.

As for the vocals, while they are far from ‘bad’ or ‘boring’, the clean tones just don’t seem fitting in certain spots. If you might picture a subdued Lemmy after a night of intense Quaalude-swallowing you might have the vocal style here, which is by no means a knock; when compared to the great, albeit vocally-challenged Lemmy you do need to bow on bended knee at some point. When bassist/singer Joe Wickstrom offers up a well-placed yell or gruff vocal he’s spot on, marrying to perfection the sardonic and the stylistic. There are just some spots that don’t seem to gel as well as others, but that doesn’t and shouldn’t take away from what is an otherwise great album of weighty tunes that will put Oregon on the map in the metal circles. 

Produced by Mike Lastra of Agalloch and Earth fame, the attentive crispness is of definitive note here, providing some severely lush tones throughout. The West coast is certainly something to watch these days; while Nirvana provided the wayward youth of the early 90’s with its own depressive brand of self-loathing through overly-basic lyrics and three-chord pollution, bands like this might right the stern in months to come…finally!

Standouts include “Blood Ritual”, “Your Name is Madness” and “Outrun the Sun”, but ingested as a whole there is no bitter pill to swallow here. Nether Regions might be well beyond the river Styx, but this brand of metal is right along the edges of the here and now and can be consumed in large, hungry doses. Enjoy the feast.            

Release Date:  February 11, 2011
Label: Band Self Released

TRACK LISTING

1.  Into the Breach/
     Spanish Werewolves
2.  Do You Live?
3.  Your Name is Madness
4.  Pale Faced God
5.  Blood Ritual
6.  Alpha/Omega
7.  A City Far Enough Away
8.  Outrun the Sun

Total playing time:  44:54

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*Comments:

Reviewer: Chris

February 28, 2011