Heriot – Profound Morality (Review)

This is the latest EP from UK metal act Heriot.

Heriot play an interesting and diverse style of music that combines metallic sludge heaviness with hardcore fury and industrial harshness. Heriot don’t really sound like any one band, and it’s great to hear music like this that isn’t concerned with genre boundaries.

This 21-minute EP contains eight tracks and not a second of filler. Even the start and end parts of opener Abaddon, for example, just ooze malevolent atmosphere. The track itself is a slow Godflesh-esque industrial march into Coalescence, which allows the band to demonstrate their crushing sound in all of its impressive glory. The song swings between moments of sheer brutality and moments of affecting beauty. That Heriot can do both easily is testament to their skill. Some more Godflesh-isms appear near the song’s malevolent finale, and it’s just a great way to close a song.

Carmine (Fills the Hollow) is next, and is an under 2-minute rager. Heriot here are as raw and as harsh as Nails at their most devastating, yet still have a strange edge to their heaviness that’s all of their own. Near Vision picks up the same theme, but then develops it into a stripped back drum and bass exercise that reminds me of Napalm Death, only with high-pitched screams.

Mutagen is an atmospheric and ethereal quasi-industrial piece, and wouldn’t be out of place on a record by Årabrot, or maybe Jesu or Isis. The band then follow this with the abrasive Enter the Flesh, which sounds like an early Eighteen Visions song with a slight Today Is the Day detour at one point.

Abattoir offers another industrial mood-based soundscape, and reminds me of some of the noise elements of The Dillinger Escape Plan. The EP closes with the title track. At 4 minutes in length it’s the longest track here, and reveals yet another facet of the Heriot sound; that of apocalyptic post-metal sludge.

Well well, this is something quite unusual here, yet very good. Profound Morality is a great place for this new band to start from – the potential here is off the scale. With an impressive sound already, I can’t wait to hear what Heriot do with a full album. Keep a firm eye on this band, as if they play their cards right then they’re destined for big things.

Very highly recommended.