7.) As High As the Highest Heavens... - True Widow (Top 20 Albums of 2011)

As High As the Highest Heavens and From the Center To the Circumference of the Earth

True Widow

Kemado Records.

Original SCQ Review

On the eve of a trip to New Hampshire, I discovered True Widow’s new record streaming on NPR. Thanks to the Texas band’s PR, SCQ had As High As the Highest Heavens And From the Center To the Circumference Of the Earth downloaded in time for the early spring visit. Sometimes in life we find experiences that were meant to collide; listening to the bone-trembling low-end of True Widow among New Hampshire’s rocky, mountain-covered terrain was certainly one of those mergers.

Although originally sucked in by the ferocious feedback of ‘Jackal’, it was the trio’s melodic frays – existing on the edge of their heaviness – that kept bringing me back. At once chugging and harmonious, ‘Skull Eyes’ perhaps best represents the pop-like extreme of True Widow’s sound. What dominates the rest of the album are slow-core meditations expounded by sleepy boy/girl vocals and imaginative songwriting. ‘Blooden Horse’ encircles a more straightforward metal song masterfully, with crisp extended passages that feed the song’s deep lungs, whereas ‘NH’ (yeah – no shit) adds subtle production on its burdened chorus until it approaches redemptive glory. When it’s finally said and done, True Widow earn this record’s epic title.