Band:	Minsk
Album:	The Crash & The Draw
Style:	Post-metal
Release date:	April 07, 2015
A review by:	BitterCOld

01. To The Initiate
02. Within And Without
03. Onward Procession I. These Longest Of Days
04. Onward Procession II. The Soil Calls
05. Onward Procession III. The Blue Hour
06. Onward Procession IV. Return, The Heir
07. Conjunction
08. The Way Is Through
09. To You There Is No End
10. To The Garish Remembrance Of Failure
11. When The Walls Fell

Nearly four years ago I sadly reported that Minsk was on indefinite hiatus. I also prophesied

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But before you ponder seppuku at this news, the band is named after a city which has shown historical resilience to invasions and razing. So who knows, maybe they, too, like their namesake, will return and rebuild. Or at least finish that album they mentioned working on and go out with a (sonic) boom.

Happy days are here again. Roughly four years since that sad news and six years off the (oddly named) With Echoes In The Movement Of Stone they are back with the release of their fourth full-length, The Crash & The Draw, a worthy follow-up to their fantastic back catalog. "Return, The Heir", indeed.

For those of you who've not heard them before, which is most of you guessing by the number of album votes their priors have, the easiest point of comparison would be Neurosis. Post metal with an emphasis on slowly developing tense atmospheres. Pounding guitars and drum kit at a slow to mid pace with world class howled, roaring vocals. The standard by so many other post-it note acts all horribly, horribly, and annoyingly short. Minsk are constantly pushing the verge of a metal pyroclastic eruption of Krakatoan-like proportions? but an eruption that never comes. Or, using alternate meanings of that last word, its edging, metal style.

While both don't seem to take the leap and crank it up to 11, both do dial it down to Mellow Moments? to relieve the tension, a necessary feature to retain an emotional connection with your listener over an extended period.

The biggest difference between the two is Neurosis often sound suffocating and claustrophobic. It's dense. Minsk just seem to have a vast, expansive feel to the music. There is a lot going on, to be sure, but it feels just huge. This feature of their releases, past and present, always draw me in and leave me awestruck.

And, to immediately prove myself a liar, if you have ever wondered what Minsk would sound like if they detonated, we're scarcely five minutes into the opener, "To The Initiate", when we find out. Maybe after four years of hiatus frustration, they just needed to go berserk and unload. It was perhaps the biggest surprise of the album and left me picking my jaw up off the floor upon recovery.

TC&TD features 11 tracks, spanning about 75 minutes worth of music, with an early four-song slab, "Onward Procession" parts I through IV, which, in ye olden days of vinyl or cassettes and pencils, would signify the end of Side I.

Minsk come rumbling and storming out the gate, but as they close in on halftime, they ease back and (mostly and comparatively) chill their way in with more laid back songs. A needed vacation from the half hour of concussion-inducing punishment that marks the opening salvo.

The album continues in reverse-fashion, as we ease in through the sublime "Conjunction" and most of the way through "The Way Is Through" before smooth waters give way to more storm-warning intensity, bombastic kit pounding and the hammering of guitars. The closer is a nice, well, closing argument, factoring in all the components which make this band so enthralling.

I enjoy how the band is able to craft songs that are unrelenting and crushing, songs that are "tranquilo", as well as bridge the two distinct styles and pivot back and forth. In that regard, "The Crash & The Draw" is thoroughly engrossing and, well, my second favorite Minsk behind 2007's The Ritual Fires Of Abandonment.

If the green-tinted score didn't give it away, extremely highly recommended.

Author note: Tossed around Neurosis as a reference point perhaps a lot more than I would have liked to on this review. Fact is they are fairly popular around these parts, and if beating readers over the head with the comparison gets people to check Minsk out, so much the better. They are undoubtedly a worthy act who stand entirely on their own merits.