Negative Thirteen – Recover What You Can
- Dark Juan
- Jan 11
- 5 min read
Self - Released
Release Date: 25.01.25
Running Time: 32:06
Score: 9/10
Hello again. It is early 2025 and West Yorkshire has recently creaked back to life after being absolutely paralysed by a bit of snow. I managed to get to work after spending 45 minutes trying to manoeuvre the Schwerer Gothikpanzer up a snow-covered hill and then it was announced that we didn’t have to rush into work because of the weather. I am ashamed to say, dear reader, that I might have uttered a choice selection of imprecations and oaths and then spent the next hour extracting small Korean cars with automatic transmissions from the clutches of the cold white stuff so the staff could go home. I found myself wishing very much for lockable differentials and a group of Finnish people to help me, being as they are used to having frozen water (and Russian ordnance) dumped on them in significant quantities, and it would be fairly certain that they also would have had some kind of warming alcoholic beverage on their persons.
Before our Northern US and Canadian friends start laughing at me because the British are generally useless at everything apart from warfare, subjugating native populations and bureaucracy and having a certain generation thinking that we still rule the waves, it must be remembered that Britain is a temperate country and not geared to dealing with extreme weather events. Normally snow provokes a wave of school closures and video of some poor sod in a Kia Sedona sliding sideways or backwards down an ice-slicked hill and into the nearest wall. There is also always some prick in a fucking Land Rover who ends up binning his car because he thought weather and physics didn’t apply to him because he was driving a 4x4, having forgotten he was on road tyres. The likelihood of there being a bunch of people laughing at this by the side of the road is also high, because the other great thing the British do beyond any other nation is have a cruel sense of humour. Elon Musk would not last fifteen seconds in the face of a full-on British sarcasm assault. Generally only Australians and New Zealanders can.
I’m supposed to be here to talk about music, aren’t I? Very well… The fearsome Platter of Splatter ™ has been removed from confinement and the latest release from Pennsylvania's Negative Thirteen/13. I am unsure how they would like to be named, being numerically or alphabetically as the blurb and album artwork I received in the EPK makes the number and the word interchangeable. I will use the word “Thirteen” for the duration of this review and apologise if I have pissed the band off for this. Actual rage might well come later when they read my thoughts on their music…
“Recover What You Can” is opened by ‘The Desolate’, an instrumental introduction of chunky guitars and some fucking amazing bass work from Mary Bielich, all sub-Sabbathian riffing and clattering every piece of metalware the drumkit has before there is a brief segue before the band hit the Groove Pedal and launch into a full-throated rendition of ‘Casket Trail’. Which is a killer Doom/ Sludge track with some unusual time signatures and changes throughout the song. Suddenly, Dark Juan is shaken out of his complacency and his original thoughts of writing Negative Thirteen up as a fairly generic Doom/ Sludge band.
Damn you, Negative Thirteen, for making me have to think about what I am doing instead of just bashing words out willy nilly. Arseholes.
‘The Vulture Circles’ is next up, and this is a rather more fast-paced affair, still sludgy as fuck but also swinging like Mike Tyson hopped up on serious levels of amphetamines after being told that Dark Juan just fucked his mum. Up the arse. It has a surprising Punky edge in the vocal line during the chorus but then sticks in influences from Desert Rock and a pleasing touch of Psychedelia. The band really lets go on this song and it is frankly fucking genius. Bielich’s bass work and her tone are just sublime on this song as well. Saying that, the tone of her bass is spine-crushingly brilliant throughout the whole record.
The next song is ‘Horizon Divides’ and this piece reduces the Sludge and Doom for an almost full-on Gothic Metal assault on the senses and by god it is fucking brilliant. Equal parts spitting acidic venom and soul-crushing heartbreak, Scott Fisher’s razor-edged singing also lifts the song beyond competence to the sunlit highlands of brilliance.
In fact, Fisher’s engaging roar reminds Dark Juan somewhat of a combination of the Scouse Gloomster Darren White’s (Anathema, The Blood Divine) impassioned howling and the spittle-flecked barking of Prong’s Tommy Victor when he is going for full bore vocal attack, however the man is capable of much more – he has a soulful, mournful croon at his disposal during the more Post-Everything passages on the album and could dissolve the knickers off a room full of young goth girls if he put his mind to it, just by crooning at them.
Now, I mentioned the word “Goth”. It is well known that Dark Juan is a Sad Old Goff and where Negative Thirteen shine is when they stretch themselves from the fairly standard Doom/ Sludge blueprint and incorporate strands of Post-Metal and Gothic Rock into their music. Suddenly, Negative Thirteen are elevated from entertaining and a fun listen but not overly thrilling into something magnificent. I wouldn’t go as far as to say glittering because the music is still more dour than a pub full of North Yorkshiremen faced with a stranger with a German accent coming in and asking for a litre of beer. And then indicating the lager, which all Northerners know is not proper beer. That’s ladies’ beer. Real men drink ale, ah tell thee… but yes, Negative Thirteen confound expectations when you least expect it. The guitar work throughout the album is also brilliant, Edward Banchs being able to crush your skull with monumental riffs as well as making that guitar scream and sing and cry and wail… the drumming is also top-notch stuff with a particularly pleasing bass drum sound that’s resonant and thrilling and doesn’t sound like a Liverpool housewife whacking a wet blanket with a flaccid trout. Which is a regular occurrence in Liverpool, I’m led to believe…
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System is mightily pleased with this offering, and muses upon the score it shall get while the Platter of Splatter ™ is once more cornered and corralled. Negative Thirteen are awarded 9/10 for a truly great album that will please everyone who likes Doom and Sludge Metal and capture a few more acolytes along the way from the silly boots and black lipstick brigades.
A final word – I had a look at some photos of the band and expected them to be dour and angry-looking and was confounded to find that they are an attractive and smiley bunch. That will teach me to have preconceptions, and it should be a lesson to all of you who I imagine read this shit.
TRACKLISTING:
1. The Desolate (1:05)
2. Casket Trail (4:13)
3. The Vulture Circles (4:47)
4. Horizon Divides (6:38)
5. Devil In Your Head (8:57)
6. Recover What You Can (7:46)
LINE-UP:
Scott Fisher - Vocals
Edward Banchs - Guitar
Chip Reynolds - Drums
Mary Bielich – Bass
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