Hell has been a recurring name in my mind, which is weird, because I never gave the project a serious listen at home until now while preparing for this review. This is because Matthew Scott Williams’ project has been a feature at Roadburn festival for two years (2016 and 2018). I’ve experienced Hell (the band) back in 2018 and it was, ehrm..., a hellish experience. It was a particularly hot day in April with a packed audience in an indoor stage, and it got sweaty. So I was well aware of the project’s existence, its soundscapes and dantesque aesthetics.
By listening to all the previous records before jumping on this one, I can tell you that not much has changed stylewise. Hell is first and foremost a sludge metal project, but with a heavy emphasis on extremity. When it is slow, it is basically funeral doom. When it’s fast, it achieves a gnarly black metal aura. What I find most intriguing, however, are those really calm passages sprinkled throughout the albums. Sometimes it’s pure dark ambient with samples, or clean guitar melodies, or even heavenly choirs that remind me of Bell Witch. The juxtaposition of these elements along with the extreme sludge sound makes for a very recognizable sound.
Understandably, Hell has not changed the formula. What keeps changing and improving is the sound itself. Submersus is easily Hell’s best produced album (not counting this year's collaboration with Mizmor, that is). The riffs are crushing, crusty and pretty clear for the style. The pummeling guitar and bass combo work perfectly alongside the filthy rasps and howls, which give Hell a hint of black metal alongside the drumming’s faster moments.
Submersus’ structure is an interesting one. The opener “Hevy” is, well, heavy, but the second track “Gravis” suddenly turns soothing during its second half. This emotional, introspective music trend continues for the greater part of the album. For even though “Mortem” sees the project return to the crushing riffs, it quickly leans towards funeral doom melodies that can easily pluck the listener's heartstrings, especially near the end. Sadly I was left in confusion with the last track, “Bog”. It is several minutes of bass earthquakes that evolve into slow, sludgy riffs and drums, before returning to the bass drone in the beginning: a very anticlimactic affair that I couldn’t connect at all with the rest of the album.
Even though Submersus doesn’t stick the landing and I ended up enjoying some of Hell’s previous records over it, I still really enjoyed this record. Hell is a project that is in no need of reinventing itself, but it might need more interesting songwriting in the future.
