Rintrah - Salt Of The Earth - Album Review

Year: 2014

One of the biggest blessings for today's music industry is the website called Bandcamp. If one is patient enough, there are abundant number of good and talented bands on that site. Of course, one might have to go through a big pile of turd before stumbling on a gem. But once that one gem of a band is found, the feeling of joy and pride is a priceless reward in itself. I can say for sure because recently I found one such gem from Tennessee, USA called Rintrah.

Let me give you an introduction to this band before I proceed to tell you how awesome their new album is. Rintrah is a band that was formed in 2009 and they play a style of psychedelic stoner metal. 'Salt of the Earth' is the band's first full length album and was released by the band on 6th January, 2014.

Rintrah's music is of the layered kind where each member does his own thing, while also managing to make all the layers work in unison. The pace of the music is very relaxed and it has a very soothing and calming quality to it. Guitarists Jason Wright and Brett McKee create riffs that have a good mix of melody and heaviness to them. The riffs and lead parts sit comfortably over an atmosphere created by the distorted rhythm guitars and synth work, which is also executed by Brett. 

The psychedelic nature of their music and the stoner metal portions are present in almost equal proportions, with the psychedelia outweighing at times. It is not a complete down tuned distortion fest and there are numerous parts where clean guitars are used to create spectacular melodies. For a stoner band, the bass is of paramount importance and this is something that bassist Jeremy Fleming seems to understand quite well. His bass work is neat and it gives the music, that characteristic stoner sound. 

The music also sports progressive elements, in a magnitude that it would justify the addition of the term progressive to the band's sub genre. The role of the drummer is always restricted in a genre like stoner metal and drummer Caleb Roney offers some interesting fills, despite this restriction.

True to character of the genre, the song lengths are kept long and enough material is contained in each track that it seldom feels repetitive or boring. With a play time of almost one hour, Rintrah manages to keep things fresh throughout. There are even a couple of instrumental tracks inserted between the main songs and these tracks sound absolutely beautiful. The vocals are performed once again by Brett McKee. There is no fixed vocal style here, as it varies from track to track. The vocal style changes from growling, to singing and includes everything in between. The clean vocals in particular, sound spectacular and add to the psychedelic nature of the music.

The mixing and production carry no flaws and do a perfect job in allowing this form layered music to shine. Rintrah is a band with amazing talents and it is evident from their performance in 'Salt of the Earth'. I for one, am glad that I stumbled upon their bandcamp page. Do check them out. You might fall in love with them just as I have.

Rating: 93%