THE HOOM! YEAR IN METAL 2008: RARIFIED AIR

4.1 CYNIC * TRACED IN AIR (Season of Mist)

4.2 TESTAMENT * THE FORMATION OF DAMNATION (Nuclear Blast)

Ha I was silently wondering if anyone would call me out on the perceived tardiness of the HooM! Year In Metal 2008 coverage, which resumed this week. And this wise guy did (a tear), but hey we both win cuz I get to peddle another rant of mine: the timing of year-end best-of lists. Look, goddammit, some records don't come out until late in the year; adjust for the month or so it takes to get in to the shit, general mulling, hot-and-cold phases, revisiting early-year releases, and getting really baked then writing about it -- that shit takes time. So how can these pat Nov 30th year-end lists be trusted at all? How could even the most specious bearded hipster screwhead put a three-week old record atop his list? I call BULLSHIT.

So praise me, good Metal people, for getting reallllly stoned and patiently logging countless hours concocting these meaningless rankings. The first half (here here here here and here) wrapped around year's end, and frankly I'm relieved it wasn't Mother's Day before Phase II of this monster bitch saw completion, cuz admit it, 2008 was lousy with exceedingly subtle, evasive albums. Take the reactivated Cynic's Traced In Air, an ethereal album-length suite of unimposing prog-metal. Where the genre overwhelms with clustered performance and business, Traced instead punches you with eight fists in pillows just frequently enough to distract and daze. Not exactly an instant toe-tapper.

As a young Atheist super-fan, I was unmotivated to follow another mega-respected jazz-metal outfit, just as few folks leave the supermarket with a case each of Coke and Pepsi. Chalk that up to foolish teenage laziness on my part, for as buzz started heating up (not to mix metaphors) about Cynic's return, it took the duration of an eye-blink before I was in love with their only record, 1993's Focus, albeit 15 fucking years after the fact. Yet that didn't prepare me for Traced In Air; not to be a sell-out, but again, the album to some extent defies description. It's Metal and it's heavy, but the pace and intensity suggest a fretful nap, not a tank charge into certain death. There's rampant vocal-harmonizer use (yes with some pitch-correction cheating), but frontman Paul Masvidal employs it as an instrument, not an effect, which is yet another testament to his genius as a performer and composer.

Perhaps most remarkably, Masvidal and Cynic infuse Traced with a sonic spaciousness, leaving each instrument audible (not just discernible); another contributor is the guitar tone, which is contained but muscular when heavy, and avoids being all dickless or synthetic in its shimmer in clean mode (think Chris DeGarmo not John Petrucci). In this layer of free space, chants, growls, and whispers prop up the lead vocals. Masvidal's melodies and hooks don't catch right away, mostly because even at its most frenetic and harried, there always seems to be a sustaining/swelling guitar or held vocal patching together the pieces of Traced In Air. 

It plays kinda like a collaboration between Porcupine Tree and The Mars Volta. Which perfectly symbolizes (you're welcome) a sturdy justification for Cynic's return: to weigh in on the genre which has travelled light years in several directions since Focus. Conversely, Testament's only excuse for making a record is being goddamn fucking Testament, a thrash band qualitatively as pivotal as any and arguably the purest.

Rejoined by guitarist Alex Skolnick, bassist Greg Christian, and not-original-but-awesome drummer Paul Bostaph, Testament had more than just a long break (and a new perspective after an awful health scare) to make possible the jolt of Thrash energy in 2008's The Formation of Damnation. And hence the true identity of the band, the reason they stand among the Titans of Thrash: not venomous like prime Metallica, nor finesse-based and punkishly hateful like classic Megadeth, without the pop-mosh element exclusive to Anthrax, and trading in a slighter strain of Slayer's violent theatrics, Testament had the muscle, the moves, the impact punch-for-punch. But yes, Testament was slightly too unconcerned with trailblazing. In other words, they were The Stones to Metallica's Beatles, Megadeth's Kinks, Slayer's Small Faces, and Anthrax's ...shit ... Anthrax's Paul Revere & The Raiders? 

Still, one might've been concerned for the vibe of a classic line-up reunion outing, especially one saddled with the burden of following 1999's titanic The Gathering. Plus for some, a new record merely serves as an excuse to tour then again promptly separate (Anthrax didn't even bother with the record). Listening to TFoD, one gets the sense that more than anything, it's a matter of Chuck Billy and Eric Peterson finding their footing on higher ground that no longer is shared with any but one of the aforementioned bands. The result is not perfect, as their 9/11 song is pah-ritty dated by 2008 and only once is that classic Skolnick social counterpoint to the Billy you song/total destruction anthem pattern represented. Then again, Skolnick's "F.E.A.R." doesn't exactly match up to gems like "Perilous Nation" and "Malpractice."

And can we tawk about Eric Peterson -- is there any songwriter/riffist more overlooked? He's like Vincent Gallo and Christina Ricci in a photo booth: spanning time. Visit TFoD's title track, another gold-medal in the same trophy case that houses "Blessed In Contempt" and "D.N.R. (Do Not Resusitate)", and you'll be battered by rhythm parts that blend single-note licks with crunching chords, speed and groove, menace and melody. And THE best tone in Metal. Drop Peterson in any region, any genre, any era and he will take over your scene. It's convenient for all of us that my scene is Testament. So let's all just relax.