High on Fire : Cometh The Storm

It’s been over 5 years since the last High on Fire album, the Lemmy-worshipping Electric Messiah. Since then HoF singer/guitarist/resident conspiracy theorist Matt Pike has dealt with health issues, marriage, divorce, and a solo album titled Pike vs The Automaton. Pike vs The Automaton was essentially a High on Fire album, minus HoF bassist Jeff Matz. It was a lockdown project to keep Pike from completely losing it from isolation and Covid conspiracies. I’m not sure if it worked entirely, but it was a great record to satiate fans in the interim.

After that extended hiatus I think we’re all ready for something new from Oakland’s finest doom metal wizards. Pike has assembled High on Fire once again, this time with new drummer Coady Willis replacing longtime basher Des Kensel. Cometh The Storm is Willis’ HoF record debut, and it’s a doozy. Pike and co come out swinging and never stop. The doom/sludge/speed metal titans are re-energized and lay waste to whatever gets in their way. The band hasn’t sounded this good or urgent since 2012s concept album De Vermis Mysteriis.

If you’ve been a long time fan this record will feel like slipping into well worn and bloodied battle gear. The vibe is still post-apocalyptic doom on speed for the end times, illustrated by Frank Frazetta with a Slayer chaser. Pike screams like a hesher leading his minions for a late night munchie run, laying waste to anyone that gets in their way. Cometh The Storm brings together both the slow churn dirges and caffeinated double kick rhythms with ease. It’s the aggro speed doom album you’ve been pining for. Longtime pal, Converge guitarist, and producer Kurt Ballou gives everything a studio shine that makes this record all the more compelling.

“Lambsbread” opens the album with all pistons firing. Pike belts out bloody shouts as Matz and Willis offer up a pummeling rhythm section. Guitars churn and shred like barb wire. This is a welcome return. And the Middle Eastern-sounding breakdown in the middle section is something new and exciting in the HoF canon. “Burning Down” opens on a buzzing Matt Pike riff while Matz and Willis lay down an impenetrable rhythm section, bringing to mind the sludgy thrash of The Art Of Self Defense. “Trismegistus” highlights Cody Willis’ drumming mastery while Pike screams up bloody spittle over a rolling chug of speed metal destruction. And title track “Cometh The Storm” comes in subtle but brings brutal conviction midway thru.

Cometh The Storm never relents. From “Sol’s Golden Curse” to the fistful of metal that is “Tough Guy” to the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal-leaning “Hunting Shadows” and the epic 10-minute closer “Darker Fleece”, High on Fire make it perfectly clear they are back and ready to soundtrack the end times in the heaviest of ways.