Bandcamp A third of Smuggler’s Cave lives below two hundred and fifty hertz. That is more bottom end than any of the thirty eight records we have put through the same measurement, and it is not close: the median across these seven songs sits above the heaviest single track the previous record holder could manage.
Which is a number, and numbers are not the point. The point is what the number is a symptom of. Humulus do not get heavy the way most bands reaching for this sound get heavy, by slowing until the riff stops moving or tuning until the strings go slack. They get heavy by building from the floor up and then declining to decorate the top. The treble share here is modest and stays modest, so the mass has nowhere to hide and nothing competing with it. Seven songs at this density should turn into porridge somewhere around track four. It does not, and working out why is most of the pleasure.
Part of the answer is that the record keeps moving even while its tonal signature stays put. The distance between the quiet and loud passages runs around eleven decibels through most of the album, which is real room, and the band spend it rather than hoard it. “Smuggler’s Cave” itself is the darkest thing here and also one of the widest, a combination that usually means a song is pretending to be a journey. This one earns it.
Two tracks sit outside the pattern in opposite directions. “Pines” is the flattest thing on the album by a distance and the heaviest at the bottom, which is to say it is the one song that does commit to being a single sustained block. Depending on your tolerance it is either the centre of the record or the place you start checking how long is left. “Cursed Man” runs longest by some way and uses the length properly, which is not always the same thing.
The mastering is loud. Average levels sit high and the peaks keep a narrower margin above them than most of what we measure, so there is less air around this than around, say, a post-metal record built for headphones. That is worth saying plainly and then putting in proportion: this is a style with a long tradition of records that want to be played at volume in a room, and nothing here has been crushed into a wall. The playing survives it. If you came looking for an audiophile pressing you are in the wrong aisle, and you probably knew that.
So, plainly: yes, this is a good record and we recommend it, particularly to anyone who likes this music for the physical half rather than the psychedelic half. Humulus have found a tonal identity most bands in this lane never bother looking for, and they commit to it for the full running time without once reaching for a trick. The reservation is that the commitment is also the limit. A record this consistent in colour asks you to like one thing very much, and “Pines” shows what happens when the consistency stops being a choice and starts being the whole song. Begin with “Smuggler’s Cave”, then “Cursed Man”.
The bottom end is the headline. Across the seven tracks the low band under two hundred and fifty hertz holds between 31.7 and 35.2 percent with a median of 33.8, which is the highest of the thirty eight albums in our measurement set and roughly four points clear of second place. The midrange share is correspondingly the lowest we have on file at a median of 35.0 percent, and treble sits between 11.1 and 14.8. Tonal centres run 1676 to 2055 hertz, with “Smuggler’s Cave” the darkest at 1676. Dynamic range has a median of 10.8 decibels and a spread from 4.2 on “Pines” to 12.7 on the title track, so the record is far from flat. Crest values are the tight part: 9.5 to 11.0 decibels above average, which is a loud master with limited headroom, though nothing is limited into a solid block and the transients survive. Average levels hold between minus 9.2 and minus 10.7 decibels.
Standout tracks: Smuggler’s Cave, Rise And Fall, Cemetery Vision
