ALBUM REVIEW
HANG THEIR BODIES – Raise Your Fist, Evangelist!
Strong atmosphere, limited dynamics
Are you ready to spend 35 minutes wallowing in emptiness, nothingness, and gloom? With Raise Your Fist, Evangelist!, HANG THEIR BODIES draws the listener into a thoroughly dark atmosphere. Rather than the muddy weight of sludge metal, the band leans towards the layered, atmospheric approach of post-doom, while its raw screams bring the cold, unpolished aesthetic of black metal into the mix. The vocals maintain the same tone from the opening track onwards, and combined with an instrumental intensity that barely changes throughout the album, they create an overwhelmingly bleak whole. Looking for pronounced build-ups, sharp shifts, or dramatic transitions that take the listener in different directions is futile here. The band prefers to maintain the same dark atmosphere from beginning to end.
To be fair, I get the impression that these young musicians know exactly what they want to do. There is a layered structure in place, bringing together post-doom's atmospheric approach and black metal's raw screams. The problem, however, lies not so much in establishing this atmosphere as in sustaining it. At a certain point, the album's seven tracks begin to feel less like seven distinct songs and more like one long composition that simply keeps going. As the individual tracks fail to establish sufficiently distinct identities, the atmospheric cohesion gradually gives way to monotony. Maintaining the same intensity for roughly 35 minutes turns what might initially be an effective sense of gloom into something increasingly difficult to digest. The layers are there, and so is the intent, but I can't say the music continues to make a fresh impression on the listener.
The lyrics are among the strongest elements supporting the album's dark world. Spit It Out, Optimist explores how a lie someone has believed for years can become deeply ingrained in them. The line “Your teeth grew around it” expresses this illusion taking root in a person's very character through a striking metaphor. The World Owes You Nothing, meanwhile, revolves around the feeling of receiving nothing in return for years spent and effort invested. The irony in the line “It has been very generous with the nothing” is particularly effective, capturing the idea of the world generously offering a person nothing at all. The fact that the track remains instrumental for its first four minutes and ten seconds, with the vocals only entering towards the end, also gives the lyrics greater weight.
With Tomorrow Is a Liar, the future becomes a liar repeating the same promise every morning. The words “It gets better” bring to mind the endless reassurances that everything will eventually work out, while the line “It only needs me to stay” describes how that promise becomes a cycle that keeps a person trapped where they are. Hope Is a Terrible Habit, meanwhile, likens hope to a hunger growing in the dark. The narrator's admission that it grows back whenever they try to suppress it reinforces the contradiction at the heart of the album: people can find themselves clinging once again to the very thing they want to give up. These lyrics suggest that the band is trying to do more than create a dark sound; it is also attempting to build a narrative around existential anxieties.
With Nothing Waits at the End and Amen, and Nothing After, this narrative takes on an even more unsettling quality. The absence of a hand or face where one should be, the image of a mouth just before it speaks, and silence learning the shape of a person after a funeral make nothingness feel like something tangible. In the final track, the earth slowly takes everything without gratitude, and then silence begins saying “Amen” alongside the people. This is particularly effective. The lyrics' greatest strength lies in their ability to convey abstract concepts such as nothingness and death through concrete, disturbing imagery. Yet these differences in the lyrics find no equally distinct counterpart in the music as a whole.
Ultimately, Raise Your Fist, Evangelist! is a coherent work in terms of atmosphere and lyrical unity, made by a band that has a clear idea of what it wants to achieve. The idea of combining post-doom's heavy, layered structure with black metal's raw screams is an intriguing one. But creating an atmosphere and keeping it alive for 35 minutes are two different things. The intensity maintained throughout eventually makes it difficult to distinguish one track from another and turns the album into a challenging listen. There is no shortage of gloom; quite the opposite, in fact. But that gloom doesn't always have anything new to say.
Honestly, I understand what the album is trying to do, but at a certain point, I hit a wall when it comes to its staying power. By the end of those 35 minutes, you feel like downing your beer in one go and hurling the bottle at the wall. Of course, that doesn't mean the band has failed to create an atmosphere; quite the opposite. It's about how that atmosphere eventually starts to wear the listener down. I understand what these young musicians are going for, but this time, I couldn't bridge the gap between intent and execution. Gloom, sure. Nothingness, sure. But come on, a person needs to catch their breath every now and then!
Of course, I should also point out that I'm judging all of this through the lens of my own listening habits and musical expectations. To be honest, the music this band plays falls well outside my usual listening territory. My personal preferences therefore play a part in this assessment. If their aim is to reach a smaller audience that embraces this dark, monotonous atmosphere, then sticking to their own approach is certainly understandable. However, if they want to appeal to a wider audience, I think they need to support their existing layered sound with greater dynamic variety and give each track a more distinct identity. After all, creating a strong atmosphere is important, but it is just as important to support it with a compositional approach capable of keeping listeners engaged with the music for 35 minutes. I understand what these young musicians want to do; the challenge lies in turning that idea into a more effective and sustainable musical expression.
https://hangtheirbodies.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/people/Hang-Their-Bodies/61594637482218/