Album Review: Cometh The Storm by High On Fire

The metal masters return with a formidable new album

Streaming Links: Spotify, Apple Music

Release Date: April 19th 2024

Label: MNRK Records

RIYL: Sleep, Red Fang, Neurosis, Yob, Baroness

High on Fire today released their 9th full length album and boy is it good! The metal power trio, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, sounds as fresh as ever.

Frontman’s Matt Pike’s killer guitar licks and snarling vocals dominate as usual. His lyrics are about some of his favorite subjects: weed, impending nuclear doom, wealth inequality, MMA, Egyptian mythology. Bassist Jeff Matz’s fingerprints are clearly all over this album too in a big way. Jeff has spoken a lot about his love of baglama and Turkish music and it’s great how much it influenced this album directly (see the track Karanlik Yol, which means Dark Road in Turkish) and indirectly (the main melody in the opener Lambsbread). Drummer Coady Willis (who also plays for Big Business) does a phenomenal job replacing longtime drummer and founding member Des Kensel who stepped away to focus on his family.

Lots of good tracks here for sure. I was particularly taken by the opener Lambsbread, the Turkish influenced Karanlik Yol, the hardcore banger The Beating, and the funnily named Lightning Beard.

All in all this is a great example of a band moving forward into new territory while at the same time respecting its legacy. Amazing album all around that I’m sure to be listening to for quite a long time.

Final side note: I’ve been taking some bass lessons with Jeff Matz over zoom for a while. In addition to Jeff being a kick ass bass player he is also an insanely great guy.