There is a wealth of potential in Sludge Metal that is often underutilized. Just as in other genres like Deathgrind, there is an innate heft present that is felt and often sufficient for people seeking quick thrills. For a while, The Lion’s Daughter escaped this trend with sharply written albums that were truly creative and unpredictable, such as Existence is Horror. With Future Cult, they started experimenting with John Carpenter like synths and this fundamentally changed their sound. 2021’s Skin Show went all in on this direction, sacrificing much of the Sludge Metal heft for catchy horror-movie tunes that did not land well with a lot of fans. This is the moment I found them in and initially enjoyed the work they had put out because of songs with some great vocal hooks (“Curtains” and “Snakeface” come to mind). But the album did not last many replays and soon I was as put off as the fans; this was a work that any band could have done rather than the intricate horror of previous albums. As in response to the smoothed over Synth Metal of that album, Bath House is a rawer experience that leans less on the synths, although they are still there. Bursting out of the bath with the title track, the music takes off with a decidedly Industrial riff and an refrain that recalls Pain (Peter Tägtgren‘s Industrial Metal project). The synths on Bath House are meaner, producing uneasy sounds that often recalls a wounded animal whining out its pain in the distance. The mood the combined elements strike is overall good and there are some hefty highlights here and there.
But the mood is not well sustained. This is mostly due to a lot of the songs sounding like stubs that do not have enough of a payoff before they vanish into the mist. “Your Pets Died on TV” is a good example of this, as its mood is particularly strong. But it lacks the direction a lot of the songs had on Skin Show. Sadly, Bath House seems to be the inverse of that album when it comes to songwriting, aiming for grime and losing the tight hooks they could have picked up from that experiment. Meanwhile, “12-21-89” is a rare moment where The Lion’s Daughter manage to combine the glitzy synths, horror wails and massive Sludge Metal to produce something memorable. The song is not even stopped by being interrupted by the terrified screams of a woman in isolation before the hook comes crashing back in. It comes off as a Metal version of a Dario Argento movie and I think this feeling is what The Lion’s Daughter are reaching for with these albums. Another point of contention for me is Rick Giordano‘s clean vocals. They remind me a lot of Mark Sugar (Trials, Black Sites) and feel like an odd fit next to the inhuman growls, though this is more of an nitpick. I love the idea of what this band are trying to do with these albums but I really struggle with the execution of the ideas themselves. They either need to learn to make a compelling arc to their songs when they are this short or to somehow merge this sound with their previous touch for progressive songwriting if they would like to pull off the album they seem to be aiming for. In the meanwhile, it pains me to hand out a score as low as this for a band I know can do much, much better.
