I want to say, before I get to my actual review, that I give out a lot of high scores in my reviews because I would much rather write about a record that makes me stoked to listen to music than something that I hate after one song.
And American Heritage is a band that I am constantly stoked about. At times in the past, I felt like American Heritage was a sort of redundant Mastodon-ish band, although their careers have run concurrent. Mastodon has the incredible strength and backbone of Brann Dailor, who is the most insane drummers I've ever seen. And while American Heritage has some very large chops, it was hard for me to pass up listening to something like Remission to listen to Why Everyone Gets Cancer. But I would still listen to it and be grateful that someone was doing something so right even if there was a band I enjoyed more. I mean, if you're reading this, you know what I mean. How many bands on your iPod could change members and play the same songs? Probably a few.
However, what has changed for me was the close release of Millenarian and Blood Mountain - one of which blew me away and one that I sold back the afternoon that I bought it. Guess which is which.
While American Heritage shares a lot of characteristics with Mastodon, they are definitely their own band even if I haven't really shown it thus far. American Heritage has tons of quick, angular riffs, but is backed up with some heavy thrash and a lot of loose bottom end crunch. A band like The Acacia Strain try for heavy by hammering down on their super detuned top string, playing monotonous breakdowns for half of an hour, but a band like American Heritage sounds as heavy as hell by just playing super tight, super intricate metal - but don't let their technical prowess lead you to believe these guys are "tech." The vocals take a background and the music itself just rides and carries the weight. But I don't mean this is like Pelican with some vocals, it's an integral part, but not the focus. I liken it to a band like Akimbo or Lords hanging out with the dudes and dudette from Kylesa or His Hero is Gone rocking out to Anodyne and playing some raging metal.
And, to me, that's what it boils down to. This is fucking metal. Forget Lamb of God or Trivium, which I'm sure most people will in three or four years. American metal is a band like American Heritage, Mouth of the Architect, or Cable - who are all coincidentally label mates. This brings me to Translation Loss Records, who seriously puts out nothing but amazing masterpieces of underground metal. Century Media, Metal Blade, Trustkill, Ferret, whoever has absolutely NOTHING on Translation Loss. Sure, a lot of labels have a band or two that are really something special, but the dude from Translation Loss consistently has the best ear of any label owner I can think of, with the possible exception of Greg from Level Plane.
Point is - this is an essential disc to own and a band you need to know because if current music trends persist, these guys will be in Vice sooner than later, and you can say, "I knew about these dudes before they were hip." And what's better than that? Not being a poser and appreciating this even if it goes far above, or under, the heads of most.
As a reward for reading my insanely long review, the definition of "Millenarian" as per the Wiki-god is:
Millenarian groups typically claim that the current society and its rulers are corrupt, unjust, or otherwise wrong. They therefore believe they will be destroyed soon by a powerful force. The harmful nature of the status quo is always considered intractable without the anticipated dramatic change.
Awesome. Buy this record and support dudes with brains.
