The issue of flanderization is a real for metal in 2023. It seems that for every genre, there are only a couple images or visual identities you can pick from. For example, the cover for Hibernaut‘s Ingress would suggest to me that the band plays a harsh, somewhat esoteric style of sludge akin to acts like Thou or Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean. The musical identity seems to not match the visual identity in this case, however. Hibernaut eschews the tense and often emotionally draining side of sludge in favor of midpaced grooves and an often stonery attitude. With lyrics that seem to focus on esotericism – or maybe political metaphor at times – the band doesn’t seem to fit that box perfectly, either. It serves the band well to have a unique selling point of some kind.
While I am very fond of some sludge acts, most of these are very aware of how their artistic decisions play out in album form. Swifter, more groove oriented bands usually put out shorter albums and write shorter tracks, while the bands focusing on long form tracks (and making these work) usually are more high concept and have songs that flow in a more epic manner. Hibernaut would do well with trimming both their songs and their album length. The band is talented and does play tightly, but rarely do the songs justify their song lengths that crack 7 minutes with regularity. This is a common story – Transcending Obscurity‘s Lurk was struggling with the same issue at the time. While Hibernaut does seem to be aware of this to some degree and while they experiment with different textures here and there, like in the opening to “Nor’Easter”, the justification for over 70 minutes of material sadly just isn’t quite there.
