High on Fire make burly music; that's the only thing you can really call it. The Oakland power trio's thundering roar isn't dumb; there's a clear technical virtuosity on display in Matt Pike's squiddling solos, and the songs move confidently through multiple riffs and movements without ever relying on time-tested verse-chorus-verse formatting or compromising their brutality. But there is something elemental about their assault. While peers like Mastodon construct overthought concept albums, High on Fire do one thing, and they do it very well. They pummel. Matt Pike growls out his badass nonsense lyrics like a more gnarled Lemmy, if that's even possible, and rips out one gut-busting riff and shattering solo after another. His rhythm section does their best to imitate an elephant stampede. Their basic format might vary a bit over the course of an album; they're not averse to floridly acoustic intros or eastern-tinged psych moments. But their fundamental mission won't ever change. They make tough, fast, snarly stoner metal. It's just what they do.
Snakes for the Divine is the band's fifth album. For this one, they've decamped from the venerable metal indie Relapse to the way-less-venerable indie E1. On their previous two efforts, the band worked with legendary scuzz-rock producers (Steve Albini on 2005's Blessed Black Wings, Jack Endino on 2007's Death Is This Communion). On this one, they switch things up a bit, working with Greg Fidelman, who produced Slayer's 2009 comeback album, World Painted Blood, and worked on a whole mess of recent Rick Rubin projects. Fidelman's not as natural a fit for High on Fire as Albini or Endino, and the very, very slight sheen he brings to the proceedings doesn't do them any favors. The drums don't wallop quite as hard, and Pike's guitar doesn't sound quite as much like the sound of a swamp demon bellowing. But Fidelman's smart enough to keep his tweaks from interfering much, and the band's apocalyptic fury sounds undiminished even after the last masterful two albums.
And High on Fire aren't in any danger of losing their punch. They've gone through a few bassists now, but over the years they've developed the sort of telepathic alchemy that defines a great power trio. When one of their eight-minute tracks pauses for a split second, your heart leaps because you just know they're about to rip into yet another totally flattening new riff. Their songs don't really bother much with earthly concerns. "Ghost Neck", which I think is about some sort of junkie, contains the following unparseable line: "Overdosing on the mutual garbage/ Skeleton in the end unfolds". If I had to guess, I'd say the awesomely named "Frost Hammer" was about some sort of invasion of winter gods, but the song's highlight comes when Pike just screams the title four times. High on Fire are the sort of band who put devils or skulls or snake-demon ladies on their album covers just because those things are awesome, not because they illustrate any larger cultural point. And five albums in, they're very, very good at generating awesome on demand.
A couple of songs here, "Bastard Samurai" and "How Dark We Pray", do awesome better than the rest by slowing down the band's galloping tempo and letting their riffs breathe. Pike already did slow to perfection in his previous band, doom-metal legends Sleep, and these two songs don't sound much like Sleep. They pull all the same tricks as the fastest HOF ragers; they just pull them slower. "Bastard Samurai" locks into a brontosaurus stomp, letting Pike actually sing on the verses, building up to a climactic roar instead of just hitting with that roar straight in. (And when he does finally roar, the lyric is this: "Son of a bitch will bleed a whiiiiiiile!" It's so badass.) On "How Dark We Pray", bassist Jeff Matz gets enough room to add some melodic flourishes instead of just crunch, and the song builds up a serious head of steam over its eight minutes.
But even though those two tracks may be highlights, the album really has no weak moments. Like the other HOF full-lengths before it, Snakes for the Divine shows that metal, in its most basic and elemental forms, still has plenty of visceral thrill left in it-- as long as it's done right. And High on Fire do it right.
