### Bombus: The poet and the parrot

#### 22/08/13 || Ironpants

“Bombus away!”

Sometimes it just “clicks”. You know what I mean, it could be anything. Like when you match two or three ingredients from foods that you like, or you watch a movie that you shouldn’t normally like and actually dig it, or listen to a band in a genre that you don’t listen to normally and everything just works.

Bombus is that kind of band and they are also a bit hard to categorize. They have mixed and matched stuff from their reference points and made a little niche of their own in the ever flowing stream of metal. I hear a little roughness from Motörhead, with progressiveness from Mastodon and some punky attitude with a lot of sheer rock energy. And when you mix like this, it’s a double edged sword, it can go two ways. Sometimes you get the effect similar to when you brush your teeth and directly afterwards you drink a few gulps of orange juice. But if you do it right, you can devour a bit of paradise, just like when you mix raspberry sauce with extra salty liquorice on your vanilla ice-cream.

Bombus have a few tricks up their sleeves for keeping you alert and on your toes. One of the obvious things is of course that they pack a pretty hard and energetic style song wise, and they make songs that makes you wanna headbang, or at least nod your head to the beat. They are also pretty keen on keeping the groove going, making songs that are easy to embrace, switching between a kind of medium paced rock grooves and a punky kind of “lets go” style.

The main thing that stands out for sure, is the constant use of dual singers. Both of the guitar players, Feffe and Matte, also sings, and they sing together on all songs, like a kind of constant “live” overdubbing. It contributes to their sound picture, and I would say, also becomes like some kind of trademark. Other than that, the production has a natural, rather gritty feeling, and that is welcome in this era of “over-production”. The rhythm department also plays a big part of the sound (of course), the drummer having a bit rowdy and “no bullshit” attitude, and the bass refusing to play his ordinary background shit, and steps up here and there showing his ugly face.

The album has a solid feel, as opposed to their first release, and instead of mixing and matching between the songs they have learned to build their songs with a more solid ground. It’s 8 songs and around 40 minutes in total length, and that’s perfect. You never feel bored as the album goes by track by track, and it is perfectly balanced so you’ll never feel the need to skip a track.

The song “Apparatus” pretty much summarize the style and attitude of the band, but I suggest you check out some more tracks than just that one, as they have more to offer. For example the track “Master the reality” has a completely different set up with almost stoner-ish vocals and heavy metal guitar play.“Into the fire” starts out in a slower, almost doom style before speeding up a bit. The title track “The poet and the parrot” has a killer groove riff, and when I drove around in the car with that one on, I felt like a bad motherfucker (but I guess to the people outside, I looked like the usual dork?). The album’s hit song is definitely “Enter the night”, and you can check it out here for your viewing pleasure. As you can see, I have almost something good to say about just every song on the album, so I can stop here.

In the end. This is a mighty fine rock/metal/stoner/punk blend that should suit just about anyone that likes music harder than plain rock. It’s that kind of album that draws inspiration from all genres in the heavy metal sphere (except maybe grindcore, folk and the most brutal death metal). If you get the chance to see them live I suggest you grab the chance, as I believe that these guys are the kind of people that grows in size on stage with this kind of music. Go fetch!

Here goes…

- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Century Media
- Website: www.bombusmusic.com
- Band
- Fredrik “Feffe” Berglund: vocals, guitar
- Matthias “Matte” Jacobsson: vocals, guitar
- Jonas Rydberg: bass
- Peter Asp: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Enter the night
- 02. The poet and the parrot
- 03. Liars
- 04. A safe passage
- 05. Apparatus
- 06. Let her die
- 07. Master the reality
- 08. Into the fire