Ba'al - The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here - review
Ba'al - The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here - review
Band
Ba'al Release date
July 18, 2025 Tracklist
01. Mother's Concrete Womb02. Waxwork Gorgon
03. Floral Cairn
04. Well Of Sorrows
05. The Ocean That Fills A Wound
06. Legasov
A review by
musclassia July 28, 2025
The Sheffield-based band’s 2020 debut Ellipsism was a record that I definitely enjoyed, but one that did perhaps fall a bit through the cracks of my brain, what with it emerging during one of the few periods of relative freedom in that year. Five years on, and the group are back with the verbosely titled The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here, and I feel confident that the record’s contents will linger more permanently in my memory this time around.
Genre-wise, probably the easiest label to place upon Ba'al is post-black metal, because there’s a good amount of black metal in the record, but also plenty that belongs to the worlds of post-metal and post-rock. That doesn’t quite encapsulate the entirety of the band’s fluid sound, however, with a pervasive inclination towards doom, and death doom specifically, working its way into several passages. What’s more, the songs typically explore these styles, and the spaces between them, with relative freedom, particularly as the consistently hefty track lengths offer plenty of opportunity to meander (average song runtime is 10 minutes, and none of them are much above or below this marker). It’s a promising fusion of elements, and it’s one that is generally delivered very effectively by the band.
The album’s opener is also one of its highlights; at nearly 13 minutes in length, “Mother’s Concrete Womb” isn’t in a hurry to get going, but when the initial gloomy ambience is taken over by metallic instrumentation, it is in the form of gazey tremolo lines and strings (a range of orchestral instruments cameo across the album), with a very melodic approach. The album’s lead guitar work is really its defining characteristic, whether it be tremolos or more complex leads, but the lighter tremolos eventually are joined at the table by fierce black metal riffs, which launch alongside blasts and raspy shrieks about 3 minutes into this opener. There’s something about the black metal approach on this and other songs that feels somewhat inspired by Deafheaven, particularly thanks to the vocal style, but then there’s unexpected turns towards death doom trudging (as the shrieks make way for filthy growls), before almost imperceptibly morphing into post-metal.
The midway mark of the song offers an opportunity to first crescendo up to a dark grandiose climax of dual tremolo leads and melodic motifs, before fading out and shifting into a proper quiet post-rock/metal passage. In the subdued sections of this song, and the album as a whole, vocalist Joe Stamps trades in the shrieks and growls for subdued cleans, which at their most subdued are borderline inaudible; that said, when he places more force behind them, they have a certain theatricality that takes my mind to the likes of Ashenspire or A Forest Of Stars. This dramatic approach works nicely with the escalating volume and tension of the song’s closing minutes, moving towards a big blackgaze finale.
There’s already a lot covered in “Mother’s Concrete Womb”, but the next few tracks offer more variety still. “Waxwork Gorgon” is quite melancholic, with a sad doomy core accentuated by blackened shrieks and tremolos in a fairly unique manner, elevated especially by more of that excellent lead guitar work. “Floral Cairn” is generally more energetic, with some bouncing drum rhythms and groovy riffs that dabble with panic chords, but as with the two preceding tracks, there’s still time for quiet post-metal passages, as well as post-black assaults.
As much as I dig “Floral Cairn”, one could debate how naturally its constituent passages go with one another, and if there is a weakness to The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here, it might be its coherency and fluidity, as well as the possible excess of its frequent long and quiet song openings. The album’s longest track, “The Ocean That Fills A Wound”, is guilty on both counts; it takes a long time to get going, and as much as its various quiet, blackened, doomy and richly melodic (with string and French horn appearances to be heard) sections are, I don’t know whether they all flow logically into one another. With it being such a long track, there was maybe some scope for editing it.
Still, when Ba'al do get everything right, it can be quite spectacular and unique. “Well Of Sorrows”, opening with a very quiet strings chamber ensemble, initially erupts as oddly triumphant atmospheric black metal, and later goes down the quiet post-rock route once more. In the song’s closing minutes, however, the various elements of the band – the doom, the black metal, the post-rock, the stirring lead guitar parts – all coalesce into a rather engrossing and genre-spanning conclusion that makes the band’s vision clear and captivating.
It is prone to excess, but The Fine Line Between Heaven And Here offers a lot to savour within that onslaught of material, and does so in an impressively distinctive manner. Two albums in, and while Ba'al may still benefit from some tighter self-editing, they clearly have a treasure trove of inspiration to delve into.
Written on 28.07.2025 by
Written on 28.07.2025 by
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Posts: 107
This is really great and fresh sounding album !
---- Metalhead since 1987
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Posts: 212  |
Posts: 212
I had high hopes for this based on the review but there’s a lot of meandering melodies that don’t land that emotional impact. The overall approach and sound is very appealing though. The band simply needs more experience.
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