Tom Polzine - Guitar/Vocals

Zach Wheeler - Drums/Vocals

Sebastian Baltes - Bass/Vocals

Adrian Lee Zambrano - Guitar/Synths

 

Nashville’s Howling Giant has nothing to prove. Music City’s preeminent heavy jamming psych-wizards formed more than a decade ago, and have been on an enviously productive upswing ever since. With four EPs, a split, and two full-length albums under their belts, not to mention a relentless touring ethos that finds them spreading the gospel of the riff far and wide, Howling Giant can transfix you with a gorgeous, harmony-laden vocal hook while hitting you square in the gut with the snaking, progressive groove you never saw coming.

 

So, if they have nothing to prove, how do they still sound so hungry? The solidified trio of Sebastian Baltes (bass/vocals), Tom Polzine (guitar/vocals), and Zach Wheeler (drums/vocals) have honed their craft to a diamond-hard point, but they still bring the fire to every audience with a fervor like every show is the first show, and with a wisdom like any show could be the last show. Since the 2023 release of their exquisite and widely acclaimed album Glass Future, Howling Giant has taken to the open road again and again, co-headlining a European odyssey with fellow Magnetic Eye Records vibe-hounds Heavy Temple and entrancing North America in support of heavyweights like The Obsessed, Black Tusk, and Mars Red Sky.

 

As if that weren’t enough, Howling Giant has recently expanded to a four-piece with the permanent addition of Adrian Lee Zambrano on guitar and synths. With that dual-axe attack and an absurd wealth of hook-driven, hard-driving melodic metal in their arsenal, the band is again poised to work with Magnetic Eye Records for the release of their third album, the massive and mercurial Crucible & Ruin. These are difficult times, and more than ever we need music with the vitality and passion of Howling Giant to knock us down and then lift us back up, electrified and ready to meet the day.

 

Crucible & Ruin finds Howling Giant embracing even more ethereal textures and wide-open spaces, which makes the hammer-drop of each churning riff and whip-crack drum fill hit even harder. The mellow parts are smoothly psychedelic sailing, like the pensive restraint that opens “The Archivist” or the contemplative instrumental “Lesser Gods,” but then they turn out a stuttering bruiser like “Beholder I - Downfall” which is built around such a massively heavy groove that it might have its own weather system. More importantly, though, at the core of each tune are such impeccable songwriting chops that you’ll quickly feel like you’ve known these songs forever.

 

Having brought their thunder to hundreds of audiences, each player lays down their licks in generous, sympathetic lockstep. Baltes’s bass lurks and then lashes out with huge, twanging swings, while Wheeler’s drumming lands in a perfect sweet spot midway between Dave Grohl and Neil Peart. Polzine’s and Zambrano’s guitars paint a widescreen palette of laser-focused hooks and beautiful atmospherics, from the heaving bounce of “Melchor’s Bones” and the nervy dual-guitar overlay of “Scepter & Scythe” to the mile-wide grin of a groove that pops up toward the end of “Hunter’s Mark.” Across the entire album, three voices mingle in golden harmonies that often float atop the earthbound pummel of the instrumentation.

 

If you’re the kind of person who’s still trying to figure out if Howling Giant is for you, the surest solution is to plug yourself into Crucible & Ruin’s heavy rocking hymns. They echo such fellow travelers as Baroness, Elder, and Mastodon, but if you close your eyes, you might also hear a dream vision of King’s X and Corrosion of Conformity playing with Dozer while the Allman brothers nod their approval. This is heavy music in pursuit of lightness. 

 

Howling Giant has nothing to prove, yet they’re still out here doing the damn thing. Maybe we could all use some escapism these days, but Crucible & Ruin points the way to a better world by staying deeply present in every tricky fill, every songbird riff, every canyon-deep groove, every desperate refrain. It’s a good time to be together, and Howling Giant’s gorgeous, knotty, searching new album is like the daybreak just poised to crest the horizon. Let’s get out there, together.