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SEASON OF ARROWS
Season Of Arrows

The Path Less Traveled (2014)
Rating: 8.5/10

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, along comes a band that throws a spanner in the works. US rock band Season Of Arrows has to be one of the most intriguing bands I’ve heard in a long while.

This is a female-fronted band; the sort of combo I’d grown tired of, despite the quality of artists such as Jex Thoth, The Oath, Purson, Blood Ceremony, Christian Mistress, Jess And The Ancient Ones etc. Season Of Arrows are very different, however; the Nashville quintet is mightily impressive as a sprawling rock ’n’ roll band which is more than happy to feature a pinch of doom, a sprig of sludge and a hint of psych, but it’s all wrapped up in a weighty, soaring melting pot which is lead along by the immense vocal delivery of Stormie Wakefield, who flits over this mini-masterpiece like two differing spectres.

Firstly there’s the cool, cutting vocal cries which she uses to compliment the chugging, dense riffs, but the next moment the voice becomes a surrealistic, eerie whisper keen to simply flit and flirt with those ominous breaks and sludgy rolls. Guitarists Brandon Shepard and David Gates are responsible for those monolithic yet accessible shifting plates of doom which melt with a traditional groove. And yet it all sounds so fresh on opener ‘Submersible’, which comes literally clattering across the horizon like a massive troll, but never does it lumber as the gloom is punctuated by Stormie Wakefield’s pure tones.

Forget the constant comparisons to Jefferson Airplane and the likes which have marred countless other releases of occult-fuelled rock, because this is nothing of the sort. Season Of Arrows are gargantuan, without boundaries and cast their spell as if they’ve been in this game an eternity. With enough class, weight and haunting melody to fill stadiums across the globe this quintet – which also features bassist Shawn Van Dusen and drummer Brad Lawson – should become stars in their own right.

This self-titled piece of art is comprised of nine superb numbers, the second of these being the juggernaut that is ‘The Loved One’ whose constant drudgery is contradicted by Stormie Wakefield’s effortless, floating vocal which acts as a mere caress on that layer of silted doom. Guitars, drum and bass unite to form a base of plundering riffage and slamming percussion before the track literally drifts with a halt leaving Wakefield to haunt elsewhere.

And that elsewhere happens to be ‘Soul Of The City’ with its slow, oozing guise and those fantastic vocals. Clearly more talented than literally every other vocalist in this field, Stormie Wakefield could probably take any style of music and make it her own, so I’d like to see just a tad more variety in some of these tracks. The band kind of takes part in understated fashion when they could easily create far stranger, and more complex scenarios for Wakefield to haunt. For instance, ‘Ox Blood’, which is one of the album’s groovier moments, rambles like some long-lost Black Sabbath gem and features some nice jarring chords, the likes of which rarely exist anywhere else on the record. But hey, these are minor quibbles for a record that boasts a truly magnificent sound at times, whether in the form of the churning ‘Columns’ or the plundering ‘Rival’ which begins with a stark quality.

Overall however, this is a fine debut album that has come at exactly the right time. I just hope that Season Of Arrows don’t get swallowed up by the other bands of this ilk – many of whom aren’t fit to lace the boots of this giant.

Neil Arnold

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