Band:	Urne
Album:	Serpent & Spirit
Style:	Sludge metal
Release date:	June 2021

01. Serpent & Spirit
02. The Palace Of Devils & Wolves
03. Memorial
04. Moon & Sky
05. Desolate Heart
06. Envy The Dead
07. Memorial: Sing Me To Rest
08. A Tomb So Frail

There's few things more important for an up-and-coming band than making sure your debut album opens with a killer song.

Urne are a London-based band partially born from the ashes of Hang The Bastard, with both bassist/vocalist Joe Nally and guitarist Angus Neyra formerly affiliated with the ex-sludge outfit. I've actually seen both bands live, with Urne's performance at a festival in early 2019 sticking with me strongly enough that when I saw their debut record announced, my interest was piqued, even if I couldn't quite remember how they sounded. The band themselves describe their sound in the album's promo materials as a mix of sludge, tech-metal, doom, hardcore and influences from the likes of Metallica, Mastodon and Alice In Chains, amongst others. It's a seemingly broad array of styles and inspirations, but Urne back it up with an exciting debut record.

If I had to use one genre tag to describe Serpent & Spirit, I guess I would perhaps lean towards sludge, but the album's actually one of those albums that, whilst feeling very familiar, is difficult to pigeonhole. I can hear stoner, metalcore, thrash and more across the album. A few of those styles can be heard on the opening title track, which I already alluded to in the opening sentence of this review. With the insurmountable overload of new music being released at present, it's vital to make a strong first impression, and Urne come out all guns blazing with "Serpent & Spirit", for my money the obvious highlight of the album. It opens with an instantly memorable recurring riff designed for fist-pumping (it feels as close to sludge as it does to something like Grand Magus), and then moves through Killswitch Engage-esque verses, a Mastodon-inspired guitar backdrop to the chorus and an epic bridge, during all of which Nally gets the opportunity to display his vocal range, covering both hardcore screams and eerie cleans. "Serpent & Spirit" has been a pleasure to listen to on each and every playthrough, and should work nicely in reeling in potential new fans.

Beyond "Serpent & Spirit", there's plenty on the album that shares its name to show that Urne aren't just a one-song wonder, even if they don't quite reach that level of memorability again. "The Palace Of Devils And Wolves" is a grimmer trudge, "Memorial" is an impressive instrumental that features some really nice Mastodon-inspired guitar work alongside a selection of strong riffs, and "Desolate Heart" is bleak, multi-faceted and evocative, with a beautiful guitar solo section during its emotional midsection. In terms of injecting dynamic range, "Memorial: Sing Me To Rest", a song that exhibits some clear post-rock/metalgaze influence, runs a full gauntlet from a quiet atmospheric beginning right up until a burst of blast beats later on. Even more stark, closing song "A Tomb So Frail" shifts gears rapidly from a dainty acoustic guitar intro to a Sylosis-esque thrash riff (this is another song where I could hear similarities at certain points with both Killswitch Engage and Mastodon).

Serpent & Spirit is a solid debut, with memorable riffs, varied song structures and musical influences from bands that I'm a fan of. However, it's not a flawless debut. For me, probably the songs I was less convinced were those with more stoner metal presence; there's hints of The Sword in the guitar work on "Moon & Sky", which works better in some moments than others, and whilst the surrounding music is quite fast and aggressive on "Envy The Dead", the desert rock-influenced chorus is a bit underwhelming. I don't dislike either of these songs, but I would say they're clearly a level or two below the strongest parts of the album.

I've enjoyed listening to Serpent & Spirit quite a lot; it backs up the promising signs I heard in that brief set at a small-scale local festival a couple of years ago with some quality hooks and satisfying songs. There's room to grow still as Urne fine-tune the balance between the sludge, stoner, epic heavy, metalcore and other components of their fledgling sound, but there's enough evidence on display here to have faith that this concoction is primed to deliver some more killer music in the future.