House Of Lull . House Of When - Alexis Marshall: Review
Alexis Marshall
is the frontman of noise rock/metal outfit Daughters who returned from an extended hiatus in 2018 and released their most acclaimed album to date. House of Lull is the debut solo album from Alexis and comes off of a pair of singles released earlier this year.
Review By Lav:
I actually didn't know that this record was coming until just a few weeks beforehand which didn't give me much time to get familiar with the singles or build up much expectation. I think that's for the better as despite how many people absolutely adore the last Daughters record I haven't seen much discussion for House Of Lull online yet. I was really not sure what parts of the band's sound would translate into this solo work, but Alexis does a good job of establishing a sonic identity different from what I expect to hear from Daughters. While the execution of that sound can be inconsistent, overall I think it's a pretty good start.
The two singles from the album are a pretty good place to start, and two of the better tracks here. Hounds In The Abyss really grabbed me and is the closest track on the record to fitting in on the last Daughters album Alexis is taking on a pretty intense lyrical subject detailing a person or force that seems to be stalking him and tormenting him from the shadows. His repeated calls of "Are you?" are chilling and help make the storytelling more effective. The instrumental doesn't have a whole lot of development but the core elements it's built around are satisfying with a shrill wiry background whine and tribal like drumming. I wasn't as in love with Open Mouth initially but it grew on me within the context of the full album. I love the long break in the middle of the track where Alexis' multi-tracked whispering hovers over steady splashes of electric guitar whirring. The last minute of the song is pure chaos all controlled by an absolutely crushing vocal performance.
There are a couple songs on the record that live up to the singles. Religion As Leader works as an expansion upon the previous track which we will talk about later. It has a noticeable increase in instrumental presence and a much more intense vocal performance that adds interest all around. They Can Lie There Forever is a short whirlwind of all the records sonic elements combined. It features moments of stark, almost naturalistic instrumentation alongside rushes of brash industrial sounds. It also featured methodical steady vocal refrains that slowly become unpredictable, harrowing shouting. It's a lot at just 3 minutes but I enjoy it quite a bit.
The opener Drink From The Oceans . Nothing Can Harm You starts off with a quite dark and explosive sound palette with muttering ambient noise littering the background while sparse piano keys resonate off into the distance. Alexis delivers a series of short unconnected refrains with an increasingly neurotic and unpredictable tone. The second half takes a much louder approach with some truly screamed vocals and raw crashes of instrumentation. While the chanting of "The past is like an anchor" can be pretty riveting at times the song being 7 minutes long feels pretty excessive for what it seeks to accomplish. No Truth In The Body also has a composition that's a bit of a crawl though it has help. The smaller instrumental embellishments here and there keep it feeling somewhat fresh and there are dark lyrical moments that certainly grab my attention even if the song isn't quite as memorable.
It Just Doesn't Feel Good Anymore is probably my least favorite song on the album even though it does really effective create the sensation of an improvised hellscape. Unfortunately through the maximalist confusion it has a lyrical concept and instrumental that both feel pretty circular for the purpose of confusion and don't really go anywhere for basically the entire runtime.
The record does have two tracks which are primarily delivered via spoken word and I'm not head over heels for either of them. The aforementioned Youth As Religion sets it's conceptual height pretty high with overarching lyrical themes told through quite a bit of abstract metaphoring. Instrumentally speaking the song takes quite a long time really getting into its groove and the wiry haze. It is fine overall but what the following song does with it's core elements is far better. The closing track isn't nearly as satisfying. I love spoken word as much as anyone but it helps when you can actually hear the words being spoken. While the descent into complete musical abstraction via distortion on the song is cool it takes away my ability to actually hear any of the near whisper quiet vocals. The lyrics really do aim to tie up the song thematically but they are so strangely interpolated that it's impossible for them to actually do that within the song. I think some small changes could have improved the song drastically.
House Of Lull . House Of When is a solo album with an identity, which can sometimes be a rare feat when a lead singer breaks off from the band their most well known for fronting. While the sound here is inconsistently executed I admire the album as a whole. Diving too deep into the details causes some of them to crack, mostly sonically and occasionally lyrically. But the record has the highlights and conceptuality to make it worth recommending to fans of darker, more abstract music. 6/10
This cover is simple and has all of the basic things that one needs to get the point across. The central character, text in the top and bottom and a nice greyscale palette all makes for a good cover. Although, all of these things combined and I'm still underwhelmed. There could've been something that made it more interesting, a color or even a more enticing text would have been better. I'm unexcited and that is something that should never happen. 4/10
For more noise check out my review of The Horrors Lout EP here
