Quest For Fire
Quest For Fire
Rating: 2.5/5.0
Label: Tee Pee Records
Much like a Frankenstein’s monster built for fuzzy guitars and sludge, Quest For Fire was built from the remnants of defunct Canadian garage rock bands. Similarly, their eponymous debut album is unquestionably reminiscent of 1970s heavy rock, right down to the songs’ extensive lengths. Six tracks long and clocking in at just barely over 43-minutes, their self-titled effort takes stabs at drone-rock filtered through a little metal, but it largely fails to make an impression.
“Bison Eyes” opens the album with a crunching riff and a tambourine; with an unearthly lead guitar sheen over it all, the band should probably just send a few bucks to Black Sabbath every time it’s played. The guitar interplay of Andrew Moszynski and Chad Ross is basic but admittedly effective. Each song is primarily based on a single rough-and-ready riff that repeats with variations, but that’s rock ‘n’ roll, right? “The Hawk That Hunts The Walking” drifts furthest into psychedelia, albeit of the dried-out, desert kind that seems to be coming into vogue. I for one welcome it; it’s not the psychedelia of The Zombies, but is instead much closer to that of Cream.
Quest For Fire is primarily an instrumentally dominated record; lyrics like “All your favorite stars/ there’s a sun that chases after/ All the wind and rains and feathers/ And the sky that sees you coming each and every day” never quite catch the listener’s ear, but that may be the fault of production, which borders on the oppressively huge. Josh Bauman’s bass is rarely audible, buried under guitars so dense that they might collapse into black holes; it’s not so much a fault of the band’s as the genre.
Only the opening track manages to get the job done in under six minutes. In particular, “I’ve Been Trying To Leave” overstays its welcome. It’s one of the fastest and most revealing of the band’s hardcore past, but it’s also the most disposable. Following song “You Are Always Loved,” on the other hand, is the most delicate. Reverb-heavy vocals and a slow, loping drumbeat draw the listener into a trance, like walking in the sand at night. It’s a standout on an album whose primary fault is that it sounds so generic.
Quest For Fire is not a bad album, just one that wears its influences a bit too much on the sleeve. There’s nothing wrong (or unique) about imitation or influence, but there’s also very little interesting. Perhaps the band doesn’t mind constant comparisons or “hey, they sound like…,” but if they do, they probably shouldn’t share a name with an Iron Maiden song.
by Nathan Kamal
