August 18, 2023 by A.S. Van Dorston

Nate Garrett’s fifth full length, the first since relocating to Texas, is his best, and album of the year so far.

Since Spirit Adrift’s debut EP and album in 2016, I recognized them as part of the top tier of the latest generation of heavy metal bands alongside the likes of Khemmis, Pallbearer and Magic Circle. Them is mainly a him, Nate Garrett, who was already a veteran road warrior, having played in well over a dozen bands before Take Over And Destroy and Gatecreeper, spanning sludge, death and black metal. He played all the instruments himself on the doomy Behind – Beyond EP, still handles bass and some percussion along with lead and rhythm guitar on the latest recordings. He was not shy about talking about his diverse influences, including non-metal artists like Waylon Jennings, Bauhaus and Tangerine Dream. Listening to his covers of “Man of Constant Sorrow,” originally written by Kentucky fiddler Dick Burnett in 1913, Black Sabbath’s “Supernaut” and of course last year’s 20 Centuries Gone EP (Type O Negative, Pantera, Metallica, Thin Lizzy, ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd) are illuminating, but don’t tell the whole story.

Since Garrett moved to the woods outside of Austin, TX in March 2020, he’s clearly been on a path toward something really special, based on the progression he’s made with his singing, songwriting and arranging on “Forge Your Future” the title track of an EP released in 2021, and “Sorcerer’s Fate,” the lead single on 20 Centuries Gone. Garrett has always written with his heart on his sleeve, something I appreciated from the beginning as wrote about battling inner demons, addiction, rage, sorrow. Even when lyrics appeared on the surface to delve in sci fi and traditional sword and sorcery themes, he always made it personal. If you want to know the stories behind every single album, he shares them all generously on his YouTube channel, Big Riff Energy. Everything leading up to his fifth official full-length indicated it was going to be a stunner, even the story behind the nearly telepathic connection artist Jeremy Hush had with Garrett, who encountered an owl while walking in the woods near his home, and engaged in a sort of meditative staring contest for over half an hour until the owl flew away. He hadn’t shared that story when Hush presented the sketch for the cover — an owl, feasting on the corpse of something. The LP and CD include illustrations for all eight songs.

So, on to the music. The haunting clean guitar intro brought me back to hearing the first moments of Metallica’s Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets for the first time. The mournful melody is joined by another lead guitar, courtesy of Tom Draper, galloping into the scorching “Give Her to the River.” It’s not that the music is extreme in the context of the metal landscape. Garrett has no doubt made plenty of brutal sounds in his day, but this album isn’t about loudness wars. The economical yet soaring chorus, “In the fire we transform, in the water be reborn, Soul Remains, Flow away” is where the heavy resides. Steel your nerves folks, we’re transcending flesh and bone and entering the land of the dead.

The first track was 7:34, yet didn’t feel like it. There’s over a dozen songs in the Spirit Adrift catalog that break the seven minute barrier, so it’s nothing unusual. But what is new is that there’s not a note wasted, no meandering passages where your mind wanders. My attention’s locked in, and it’s rewarded next with “Barn Burner,” a super tight, sludgy track stacked with sticky riffs. The foreboding message being that you’re next, “You’ll be the next to burn.” “Hanged Man’s Revenge” ups the tempo to thrashy levels, then settles into circular Southern-tinged chugs, but with some spacey sounding ambience on top.

“These Two Hands” starts with an acoustic driven dark folk approach before erupting into some gloriously epic metal riffs and ends with cello contributed by David Wiley. It’s subtle, but a perfect ending. Back in January I got to hear that snippet at Red Nova Ranch, the studio owned by Jeff Henson, just down the road from me, where this was recorded. Recording concluded All Hallows Eve a few months prior, but the air still seemed to vibrate from inspiration there. Amazingly, Garrett has already started recordings for album number six there.

Lives have been claimed by the river and fire, and now the titular ghost arrives in “Death Won’t Stop Me” and “I Shall Return.” The former is anthemic and as heavy as anything the band has done before, but with better clarity, and the latter’s chorus features a melody worthy of any of your favorite 80s titans. “Siren of the South” combines Crack the Skye era Mastodon prog metal with a touch of Southern rock swing. This is the kind of song that could inspire a band to base their entire career emulating. All eight songs actually have a distinctly unique approach while managing to sound cohesive. It’s a bit early to call it, but that’s what a modern classic should be. The album concludes with the title track, also the longest song at just under eight minutes. There’s a lot to process here, the least immediately accessible, but ultimately one of the most rewarding, a culmination of not just the album’s themes of death, dread and existential despair, but what feels like a milestone in the band’s entire catalog.

I don’t think there’s a shortage of great, entertaining metal this decade. But it takes a lot to make my dead, decaying insides to feel something, and this album gives me the most feels of any heavy metal that’s come out since Christian Mistress’ To Your Death in 2015. At this moment, of the year, metal album of the fucking decade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0Ada0S-tDc&list=PLXSmF0HGWs5IQYlenxU4DotKGG7ilkTQP

This was the first time since my college radio days that I first heard an album on vinyl. My system still sounds better than FLAC files, but this is all I had available leading up to the release date. It was a trip flipping this record over and over giving it repeated listens. I probably haven’t done that since, uh, 1985!