I remember randomly getting a promo of Goes Cube’s sophomore opus, In Tides And Drifts, without knowing anything about the band but loving every ferocious moment that came after pressing “play”. It was a feat of technical brutality, it was as if Converge took all of their really epic numbers and collected them on one album. It was stunning. It was perfect.
But like all “perfect” things, eventually it must come to an end. Seems to me like three albums is a pretty quick exit but as I look upon the other 2016 releases and bands that I’ve respected plodding along with subpar pieces of shit then I can’t fault a band for calling it quits when they’re clearly on top. And Goes Cube, my friends, is clearly on top.
Shadows Swallowed the Flood is probably what you’d expect if you expected the follow up to ITAD to take the feel of “The Ban Has Been Lifted” and that album’s title track and just run with it (Or that Converge reference I made earlier). It’s like the urgency of In Tides…. times a million especially knowing the finality of this recording.
“Ignore the Stranger” begins with that familiar bludgeoning but beyond the opener, “Where They Found Me” which follows, and “Anthologies” which hits later Shadows… is anything but predictable. “Strawmen” and its layered vox (featuring Zohra Atash) only adds to the intensity beneath despite being one of the slower Goes Cube songs ever written while “The Once Great Champion” is more akin to a new hum track then one by the slayers of modern technical ecstasy.
“Harbingers” continues that trend and is another GC epic slow burn that gives way to “Wash Away” which starts out as the poppiest thing Goes Cube has done interspersed with that unique heaviness that fans have grown accustomed to. Then “Crohn’s Attack” hits and it’s the proverbial musical atom bomb. Incendiary, yet beautiful, with a guitar line that echoes throughout, “Crohn’s Attack” is everything that the progression of Goes Cube should be. And incomparable to boot! The title track, which “Crohn’s” easily flows into, encapsulates perfectly the “Goes Cube sound” in a succinct four+ minute track as it fantastically mixes these sweet, introspective moments with blistering moments of cacophonous instability seamlessly.
Shadows Swallowed the Flood is available now. It’s incredible. Buy yours here and here digitally or through Greenway Records for some cool ass vinyl here.