March 1, 2011 • Profound Lore Records
I had never heard of Subrosa until I picked up their newest album on a recommendation, but I can say with confidence that No Help for the Mighty Ones is one of the finest albums of this year and definitely among my favorite doom metal albums of all time. It's masterfully crafted, full of amazing sounds, and the songwriting is absolutely fantastic. I don't listen to doom metal as much as I used to; a lot of the stuff I've heard lately has been really generic-sounding and as such has mostly turned me off from the genre, even though it's something I should be really into. But this album is an exception to all those boring albums I've heard. While at its core, the songwriting stays true to a very doomy style with crushing guitar riffs, really solid drumming, and a very dark and brooding atmosphere, Subrosa throws a lot of elements into their songs that help them stand out.
Most noticable is their near-exclusive use of clean vocals; normally I would say that would hurt a doom band's sound, but they employ a female vocalist whose voice fits the music surprisingly well—it isn't over-dramatic or mixed too high, so it blends in perfectly. Sometimes she also does some low growling sort of vocals; these are rare but they sound great. I haven't heard many female-fronted bands use harsh vocals and that's something I think the world needs more of. And for anyone who really likes the vocals, "House Carpenter" is a very folky-sounding a cappella piece. It sounds nice but I'm not a huge fan (it's not really my style of music). I will admit it fits pretty nicely in the album, though.
Another subtle but ever-present element is the use of violin; from what I understand the band actually has two full-time violinists who round out the sound really well. They switch between hanging in the background playing guitar-like riffs or coming out for some "soloing"; either way their presence is totally justified in the band's sound and it works really well. The band uses some other odd instrumentation here and there, such as the zither (I think?) in "Stonecarver", the harmonica in "Attack on Golden Mountain", or the music box at the end of "The Inheritance", which is weird but I really like how it finishes off the song. Such odd instruments are always the sort of thing you wouldn't expect to work in an album like this, but they're all pulled off really well, a testament to the talent of the band.
I am probably a bit biased in liking this album so much though—their sound does have a bit of sludge metal influence, with a lot of the riffage, tempo, and atmosphere reminding me of Cult of Luna, my all-time favorite metal band. I'm not saying they're ripping anyone off—far from it—it's just that their songs have a atmospheric and musical quality that I am already a huge fan of. The violin parts, especially, take me back to the band's self-titled album which had a lot of cello parts in it. I think cello works better in general, but it's not a slight against Subrosa. Similarly, Subrosa is able to write music that alternates well between beautiful and melodic to dirty and dissonant while meshing these moods together perfectly. "Whippoorwill" is probably my favorite track and falls mostly on the "beautiful" end of that spectrum (it's practically sing-along-able at times), but even coming right after "Attack on Golden Mountain" which is a very dark and brooding song it fits perfectly; the flow is pretty much always spot-on like that.
In fact I can hardly think of a single thing about this album I don't like. As I mentioned earlier, the songwriting is fantastic all the way through; even though most of the songs are sort of long they never get boring or over-repetitive, something a lot of doom albums have problems with. No Help for the Mighty Ones is a very recommendable album, one of the best I've heard in a while, and I'm excited to see where this band goes in the future.
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