Humanfly – Darker Later

A few years ago a bought a smattering of CD’s from a distro up-North, and although I can’t recall the exact details, what I do remember that I was lovingly given a couple of freebies. At the time I almost totally disregarded them – I thought that if they were good enough to be given away with no explanation they probably weren’t worth listening to. They have been sitting on my shelves ever since, one is still shrink wrapped and the other I did actually listen to. That release was by Humanfly and their album A God Among Insects. I could quite easily listen to it now and again, but it really isn’t one I could recommend to people, it’s just a little too erratic.

However, I would suggest checking out their latest release Darker Later. This is the third studio album from the Leeds based band that features ex-members of hardcore act Canvas – though it has been so long that it is nearly irrelevant. Whereas you could hear a lot more intensively delivered sounds on A God Among Insects, Darker Later is riddled with heavily riff-orientated, and sometimes surprisingly ambient moments. Only ‘Stew for the Murder Minded’ hints to that rarely listened to album. For a band now in their 10th year, I wouldn’t really expect anything less.

It also has some psych/sludge influences, from the dynamic power riffs and accompanying octave strummed melody on the opener ‘This Is Where Your Parents Fucked’ to the warped sounds and strained and growling vocals on ‘The Enemy of my Enemy is Me’ – the latter sounds as if vocalist/guitarist John Sutcliffe is chewing on his microphone. It isn’t sludgy in the sense of the guitar tone though. It really does bite compared to other bands’ treble-less brain-numbing drones. For Humanfly, It is all about power.

The band has developed in perhaps a similar way that Taint has done over the past few years, by diversifying their sound and transcending different areas of heaviness. The band are now more progressive in nature, and furthermore explore a stripped down sound on acoustic track ‘Darker Later’ and the 17min opus ‘Heavy Black Snow’. This track is a weird one to say the least, and changes the balance of the record — considering the other 5 tracks are relatively short — and would deservedly fit a whole side of an LP. I’m not sure I’m convinced with Rose Kemp’s contribution on here; if it’s meant to be disorientating then it certainly works. Her spoken words drift in and out but don’t seem to work for me. The track is an ambient/atmospheric collaboration that has glistening guitars and warbling picked riffs, and also has hints of post-rock/metal band Pelican in there as well. It certainly is a strange ending to an album that gradually changes from dark to light sounding compositions.