New Keepers of the Water Towers, The Calydonian Hunt: The Call From the Crystal Lake
Posted in Reviews on May 16th, 2011 by H.P. Taskmaster
If there was one lesson learned from New Keepers of the Water Towers’ MeteorCity debut, Chronicles (review here), it was that the Stockholm four-piece were just getting started in terms of their development, and that despite their abundance of sonic pummel, the really interesting work lay ahead of them. Chronicles was a compilation of two EPs, and two years later, they follow it with The Calydonian Hunt (also MeteorCity), a half-hour full-length that plays off some of the same ideas and influences as Chronicles, but shows an unmistakable sonic growth. The four-piece – who previously were lacking a bassist where now the position is filled by Robin Holmberg, though Edward Hansson also plays on a few tracks – self-recorded The Calydonian Hunt over the course of 2009-2010, but rather than sound sloppily pieced together, the record has such a flow to it that it sounds more like a single-track with different movements, rather than a collection of songs written and recorded during a year’s span. The tracks don’t bleed into each other apart from “Mankind’s Fall” and “Arise, the Serpent,” but there’s a continuity of approach and flow that nonetheless pushes the album smoothly along its plotted course of beastly, bearded riff metal.
Perhaps the biggest point of change between Chronicles and The Calydonian Hunt is New Keepers of the Water Towers’ melodic capability. Vocalist/guitarist Rasmus Booberg (who also handled the album artwork), guitarist/vocalist Victor Berg and drummer/vocalist Tor Sjödén share singing duties well, giving the tracks a varied feel and occasionally – as on “Arise, the Serpent” or the title cut – give the material a dramatic boost that wasn’t there before. Flaming Thyrr of Dead Nugent (about whom I can find absolutely no information) guests on the semi-ballad “Crystal Lake,” kicking off the second half of the album with surprising accessibility that would be all the more so were it not for the production, which seems at all times to play up the heaviest aspects of the band. That song, which follows the interlude “The Call From the Cosmos,” is clearly meant to be a focal point. It took me a couple listens to get what Booberg and company were going for – at first the song sounded overly commercial to my American ears – but then I remembered that in the European market, it’s possible to be both accessible and rocking without necessarily sacrificing one for the other, and in the context of the heaviness surrounding, “Crystal Lake” made a lot more sense. They were trying something new, taking the oh-so-hot-right-now American ethic of blending metal and pop and applying it to a more European sound. It takes some getting used to, but given the melodies of the title track and the burlier closer “The Sword in the Stone,” it’s not so out of place.
(
Already in the last eight months or so we’ve seen MeteorCity?expand its branding, name and reach beyond the long-stated conceptions of stoner rock, acquiring and promoting acts like Farflung, Elder, Eighteen Wheels Burning?and Leeches of Lore. Braving the international scene, they now release 
After a few listens to Chronicles, the MeteorCity debut from Stockholm‘s New Keepers of the Water Towers, it came as no surprise to learn that the hour-long full-length is actually made up of two previously released EPs. The two halves of the album — The Chronicles of Iceman and Chronicles of the Massive Boar — sound just different enough to be really distinguishable from each other, and since each offers a different take on post-Mastodon beast metal, it’s almost like you’re listening to a split between two bands, rather than one whole album.
