Ba’al – The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here (Review)

This is the second album by Ba’al, a blackened post-metal band from the UK.

I’ve been looking forward to this. 2017’s In Gallows by Mass introduced me to Ba’al’s brand of post-metal, but it was on 2020’s Elipsism where the band truly came into their own, developing a post-black metal framework for their post-metal that was hugely impressive. Last year’s EP Soft Eyes, a quality collection of songs, merely whetted my appetite for more, which we are now gifted with in the form of the 62-minute The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here.

As a very rough starting point, think of Ba’al as a thoroughly enjoyable and captivating mix of different elements from bands such as Amenra, Cult of Luna, Deafheaven, Downfall of Gaia, Ghost Bath, Inter Arma, and Rorcal. Ba’al have a well-formed personality of their own though, despite these references.

The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here finds Ba’al both expanding and refining their sound, sonically, stylistically, instrumentally, and vocally. This is a very well-rounded and accomplished record, and is the best work Ba’al have committed to tape thus far.

Ba’al wield emotion like a weapon, coating their music with it like acid, allowing it to corrode away the most generous defences. Emotionally, Ba’al go straight for the throat, with a merciless onslaught of despair, loss, depression, and pain. When it’s imbued with such potent power, the listener can do little but submit. Ba’al music makes you feel. It’s serrated and sharp, all the better to drive home its feeling-rich intensity, right into the meat. Your brain is the meat.

Musically, there’s a mixture of methodologies at play across The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here. Post-metal, sludge, shoegaze, doom, post-rock, and black metal influences all come together under Ba’al’s watchful glare, working together to forge a blackened post-metal identity that’s intoxicating.

The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here is heavily atmospheric, and focuses a lot of its time on building and sustaining mood and feeling. The band’s affecting melodies bathe the listener in post-metal resplendence, and are an essential and evocative part of the Ba’al formula. It’s remorselessly heavy on top of this, at least when it needs to be, with a razor sharp aggressive streak that lacerates freely with its piercing edge. Ba’al have riffs as well as blackgaze introspection, and they use them to devastating effect.

It’s bleak, but also beautiful. It’s hostile, but also tentative. It boasts immersive worldbuilding and thoughtful songwriting, yet also carries a visceral edge that’s driven by a heart of pure fury.

Alongside the core band and instruments, The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here is enhanced by the presence of cello, French horn, harp, synths, viola, and violin, adding further layers to the album’s compositions when deployed.

The mastercrafted music is varied and built for longevity. The Fine Line Between Heaven and Here is an album to experience in full, over time, allowing its hidden rewards to fully unfold in all of their multifaceted glory. Ba’al’s music is full of depth and substance, and absorbing to a fault. Does real life really matter that much when you have this to fall into so completely?

Honestly, with every release Ba’al simply convince me more and more that they are something special. The UK heavy music scene is very fertile at the moment, especially for anything on the more extreme end of the spectrum, but even within this Ba’al continue to stand out more and more. Ba’al are definitely a leading light in the UK for me. In some ways it’s shocking they’re not more popular.

Essential listening.