House of Thumbs -Crossing the Rubicon

Wed 30th Dec, 2009 in Music Reviews

One of the first things to hit you when listening to House of Thumbs’ new album Crossing The Rubicon is the high production quality. They have clearly been hard at work with this first full length album and I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised about the quality of the material produced. A very solid guitar sound supported by impeccable drumming makes for a good listening experience for punters with this album.

Following on from the band’s 2008 EP Strange Fiction, Crossing the Rubicon is being plugged as “a concept album that explores the theme of – œrelease through release’” and “follows a sadistic little man who harvests thumbs from various victims. It’s about doing what you want when you want”. While the album theme and artwork will no doubt score points with some punters from a gore perspective, there is no denying the quality of the product on offer.

There are clearly a multitude of influences at work here and its good to see that an emerging Aussie metal band is producing such good quality tunes with unusual time signatures and clear differentiation between musical stylings in each track.

The album comprises ten tracks (plus a bonus hidden track) that are hard to pigeon hole in any one sub genre. Many of the tracks are littered with Mike Patton-esque vocals which also include guttural growls and screams. While the cleaner vocals and occasional megaphone use won’t necessarily appeal to all punters, the vocal range is quite impressive and indicative of a willingness to explore alternatives to the staple growling and screaming that is so common in the metal genre these days.

A multitude of diminished / doom chords and drop B tuning make the guitar sound as tough as nails. And there are rhythmic hooks a plenty without being too technical. An ambient pre chorus clean sound in End Game (G.O.D) is very effective and there are numerous simple but well constructed power chord laden riffs that complement the drums, bass and vocals. The rolling deep guitars and varied riff mongering in Hangman is probably the most catchy guitar arrangement on the album.

There is also plenty of great blasting throughout the album particularly in Impulse, Hangman and Sunday Rat Parade. Couple this with a quality kick drum sound and well thought out tom rolls and you have a drum sound to be reckoned with.

Japanese spoken word at the start of Shura provides a nice international feel and one can only think that the lyrics are describing the same subject matter only in another part of the world in this unusually timed, eerie track. Plainfield is at times reminiscent of other Melbourne experimental metallers Uncle Chunk among other clear influences. The hidden track is a slow detuned monster that would make any doom metal fan happy.

The killer tracks on this album are Kin, Sunday Rat Parade and Hangman although all tracks are worthy of a listen. For fans of the current Melbourne metal stocks, this album would be a welcome addition to any collection and hopefully there will be plenty of local shows on the back of it.

Crossing the Rubicon is out now through independent release via the band.