2021’s Chinook was an impressive feat. While Vancouver’s Svneatr is undeniably second-wave, the album showcased and established a formidable blend of melody and riffage in a package wrapped in the tightly wound razor-wire frigidity you expect from black metal – reminiscent of Master’s Hammer or Vredehammer. Tracks like “Lavender,” “The Wind Stirs,” and “The Veins of the Earth” were some of the best tracks in the style that year with this dueling style, benefited by a rougher DIY aesthetic, even if some movements were lost in the fold. After three years, we are graced with Chinook’s follow-up, Never Return.
Never Return finds Svneatr embracing its roots while also dabbling in more stark experimentation. The theme revolves around environmentalism and capitalism’s vicious consequences, that in a way, humanity can “never return” to its prior glory. Weaponizing trademark riffs to a predictably vicious degree, the act finds its sweet spot, while utilizing a more melodic dueling guitar attack reminiscent of Rotting Christ or Dissection. However, questionable is Svneatr’s newfound incorporation of industrial textures, classical instruments, choirs, and clean vocals. This makes Never Return feel a bit drawn and quartered in too many directions, that while its signature riffs and melodies remain second to none, the more experimental elements combined with glaring production issues and strange placement make their third full-length a letdown.
Some acoustic guitar plucking adds a nice melody to opening tracks “Mechanical Wolves” and “Never Return,” before hitting you with everything you love about Svneatr: thrashy riffs, ripping solos, and a beating heart of melody that adds a nice humanity to the proceedings. This is what makes “And When Comes the Storm” all the more confusing, as it sidewinds its riff-first structure in favor of sprawling bleakness in the form of fretboard noodling and blazing tremolo atop riffs. While not a bad song and featuring a pounding riff and unique melodies, it sets the tone for the likewise industrial “Omen,” featuring mumbled Alice Cooper-esque clean vocals and cold ambiance, while the suddenly synth-heavy Midnight Odyssey approach saturating “Blackout” adds a certain icy vibe. Closer “Reaper of the Universe” features the most straightforward second-wave track since Svneatr’s The Howl, The Whisper, The Hunt and offers one of the most technical riffs of the band’s catalog, and is a nice adrenaline rush amid the dueling guitar licks and heartfelt melody.
The highlights are short-lived. Never Return is a perplexing album for Svneatr to make, because while its predecessors were bulletproof, if not predictable, the tracks here are wildly inconsistent and jarring. The first clue would likely be the suddenly melodic portion of “Never Return,” but you’d be forgiven to dismiss it, only for “And When Comes the Storm” and “Omen” to make you feel silly. These tracks, and in part “Blackout” as well, forego nearly all trademark tricks for a starkly drawling and whimpering approach to black metal whose guitar melodies and warbling distorted clean vocals toe the line between avant-garde and “do they know how notes work?” These tracks aside, another tragic element is that “Reaper of the Universe” could easily be one the act’s best songs, but ultimately, Never Return features a dismal drum tone that loses the snare beneath nearly everything else, only making frail appearances in fills and moments of silence. Svneatr’s songwriting chops in the bookends is head-above-shoulders better than they have been, but considering glaringly absent percussion and painful industrial elements, it’s difficult to wade through the muck. Although the promo details inclusion of choirs, cello, and contrabass, for the life of me I cannot find where.
Never Return hurts me, because I love Svneatr and their catalog. However, much of Never Return feels like the boys hurriedly wanted to incorporate more Nine Inch Nails influences when the album was already halfway done, but even the frail drums derail the solidness of “Mechanical Wolves” or “Reaper of the Universe.” While the band has already established their prowess as songwriters, “And When Comes the Storm” and “Omen” make me question if they even know how to play in key – and I know they can. Never Return metaphorically attempts to portray a world bereft of beauty in the wake of mankind’s greed, but due to lousy production, jarring experimentation, poor melodies, and lack of cohesion, I only hope Svneatr can return to their former glory.
Rating: 1.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Prosthetic Records
Websites: svneatr.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/svneatr
Releases Worldwide: May 10th, 2024
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