Tuesday 5 September 2017

Warrior Pope - Anchorite (EP Review)


Release date: August 5th 2017. Label: Self Released. Format: DD

Anchorite – Tracklisting

1.Immurement 12:08
2.Anchorite 17:17
3.TerraΩSolis 08:31
4.Glimpsing Divinity 07:19

Members

Oli Foxen: Bass
Katya: Drums
Will Turner-Duffin: Guitar, mixing, mastering.
David Hammonds: Classical guitar, live guitar, photography and editing

Review

Warrior Pope's new EP – Anchorite – is full of creative and heavy experimental drone/doomed out sounds that brings back memories of BORIS on different parts of the album. Warrior Pope fall mainly into the realm of Post-Rock/Post-Metal with heavy outbursts of Experimental Doom Metal and the first track Immurement does a great job in showing you that the band don't play to any particular style of music. The production is very lo-fi in parts but it shouldn't spoil your enjoyment of the EP.

As the EP progresses, Warrior Pope change their musical style and the overall feel of the music. With second track Anchorite having a few moments where the mood changes from Post-Rock to Post-Metal and then to heavier progressive Doom/Drone Metal riffs. Anchorite is perhaps the standout track on the EP as it's an epic 17 minute song where Warrior Pope create distorted psychedelic riffs that has an ISIS (The Band)/Neurosis/Pelican post-metal feel. During the middle of the song Warrior Pope change musical style altogether and start adding glitch based noises for a more electronic/experimental feel.

The final two songs TerraΩSolis and Glimpsing Divinity carry on the experimental doomed out vibe. Warrior Pope do struggle to keep the momentum going on these two tracks for a few brief moments here and there. Though overall Anchorite is a stunning and rousing success that will perhaps appeal to the more Experimental Doom/Post-Rock/Post-Metal connoisseur than the casual music fan.

Experimentation is the main key and focus on Anchorite. As it's not your standard sounding Doom/Post-Metal release. Warrior Pope deserve credit for thinking outside the box and releasing something different. Overall, Anchorite is a superb release. Lets see if the band can keep the momentum going on future releases.

Words by Steve Howe
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