High on Fire
Luminiferous (eOne)
Reviewed by Michael Toland, Fri., Aug. 14, 2015
Thriving on AC/DC's tradition of making the same album over and over, High on Fire started getting stale in 2010 on Snakes for the Divine before bouncing back two years later with the PCP-like concept to De Vermis Mysteriis. On the Oakland trio's seventh album, ingestions of new blood clearly continue. The band's post-thrash attack still levels steel, but minor tweaks – snakefinger solos ("Slave the Hive"), waltz tempos ("The Sunless Years"), thrash dynamics ("Luminiferous"), and psychedelic haze ("The Cave") – bolt a crushing new frame on a classic chassis.
