I’m a big Toby Driver fan; his work with Maudlin Of The Well is nothing short of legendary, with four albums that are avant-garde metal/rock perfection. After that band’s dissolution, Kayo Dot took over with even stranger music, and even though the metal took a clear step back, Kayo Dot always aimed for dark aesthetics and complex songwriting that made the project quite impenetrable for newcomers. To this day I still find records such as Choirs Of The Eye and Coffins On Io to be some of the most fascinating musical puzzles I’ve ever encountered. Their last record, Moss Grew On The Swords And Plowshares Alike, saw the band going back to a more extreme sound that clearly hinted at their avant-garde metal origins. This is no coincidence, as basically the whole original Maudlin Of The Well line-up was involved. We have a similar line-up now, not only with Maudlin Of The Well members but also with people that have previously worked with Toby Driver on albums like Choirs Of The Eye.
The line-up alone was a big tip-off that not only was this album going to be interesting at the very least, but also incredibly dark; however, I was taken aback at how they tackled that darkness. Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason is first and foremost a dark ambient record. I haven’t heard every Kayo Dot album, so I can’t say if this is the first time they have covered this style before, but Toby Driver is certainly not new to this, as In The L..L..Library Loft is a pretty creepy modern classical album that stood so far away from what Kayo Dot was currently doing that it became the album that launched his solo work.
Looking at it from that perspective, it is quite a good record as it is really unsettling. The drawn-out synths and keyboards mixed with unpredictable percussion and lonesome guitar chords is pretty shocking, and the tension they build gets the help of some pretty sickening shrieks and screams. Even the celestial choirs and clean vocals on the massive track "Automatic Writing" give off disturbing vibes, as it feels like the chants of a mad prophet. In true dark ambient fashion, this could work as a soundtrack to a pretty messed up abstract horror movie.
While the soundscapes explored are pretty good and clearly the work of experienced people, I just don’t think this album can justify such a massive length of 65 minutes. The album pulls me in, but I never really get to the point of full immersion because the album changes drastically on two occasions. "Oracle By Severed Head" and "Blind Creature Of Slime" are my favorite tracks from this album; they are the two more conventional efforts that reference more of the Kayo Dot I know from previous works. However, I find it a bit ironic that they disturb the tension that has been built by the uncompromising dark ambient dirges. Sometimes I feel that Kayo Dot should have just committed to it and released a shorter work that fully embraced this abstract style. As it stands, Every Rock, Every Half-Truth Under Reason is not an album I will be revisiting a lot in the future. That being said, I do admire Toby Driver’s fierce sense of musical exploration, his wish to resist all conventional methods and predictability. It is my wish that he never changes that part of his artistry.
