Contrarian Sage of Shekhinah

Finding a progressive/technical death metal band that knows when to use some restraint is hard to do. Contrarian, for all their indulgences, walk (or… walked) that line fairly well. It was a good run from 2015 to 2019 when they put out Their Worm Never Dies, a highlight of not only the genre at that time, but of the year as a whole. 

Then George Kollias left, and with him some of the band’s spirit. He was their vocalist (for 2017’s To Perceive Is to Suffer and Their Worm Never Dies) and drummer, earning a name for himself as part of Nile for the last two decades as well. I really liked what he brought to the band and when Only Time Will Tell dropped in 2020 with a new drummer (Bryce Butler, a very capable musician) and their original vocalist from 2015’s Polemic, Cody McConnell, things just felt off. Something was missing yet the music was more filling than ever - too filling.

While Sage of Shekhinah does continue the band’s epic high fantasy/sci-fi concept story, it mixes things up more with drummer Alex Cohen (ex-Imperial Triumphant and Pyrrhon) and a new vocalist named JaKob SiN, a dude who looks like he could front a nu metal project or a Psychopathic Records joint when in makeup. That’s no slight or diss - we all loved nu metal at some point and juggalos are proletariat comrades. And you know what? He’s a great fit for Contrarian! His more raspy, throaty take on the mic is closer to Kollias’ than McConnell’s and gels better with their sound.

Hearing the vocals in the album’s lead single, “In Gehenna”, was calming despite all the rollicking guitars and manic drumming. It seemed like Contrarian were righting the ship a bit, inching closer to their older selves while keeping things interesting and complicated. I mean, listen to the leads on this song; they’re outrageous almost to the point of being unapproachable. Almost. More on that later.

The album’s first half is quite fresh. The title track takes a distinct Mediterranean influence in its instrumentation and melody with lovely bouzouki bookending it to give it some much needed identity. It’s a quick track (in notes-per-second), but the second longest on Sage of Shekhinah; a great mood setter and I wish there was more of it. “Ibn al Rawandi” is another technically impressive wonder with ghostly vocals from SiN. Being the third track, this feels like a perilous journey set well into motion, dripping with exposition, or at least that’s the vibe I get - lyrics are hard to pick out most times. Every track is rife with Ed Paulsen’s bass which has an identity of its own, audible and often more outright melodic with its humming than the other guitars.

The problems start to show themselves on Sage of Shekhinah’s back half, where things get more flashy and less outright melodic. The beauty of a song like “Exorcism” or “My Curse” from Their Worm Never Dies is how catchy it is while retaining the technicality of guitarists Jim Tasikas and Brian Mason, the only members who have been with Contrarian since the beginning with no gaps. They’re the meat and potatoes, but damn do we get a lot of helpings from them sometimes. On this album, “Zabur of Satfiyah al Shamal” and “Madman From Island Patmos” have moments of cool reservation, but there’s so much going on elsewhere it’s overwhelming. It’s like the instrumentalists trip over each other a bit.

To their credit, this album is only seven songs long, around 33-minutes. Like I said before, the band can and do show restraint - what could have easily been an hour-long saga with a few songs running over ten minutes simply isn’t. The problem with that is when you have a short runway to work with, you better take the hell off in your allotted time or risk a crash. Sage of Shekhinah gets in the air just fine, impressively so, and shows more promise compared to their last effort, but turbulence takes control more than it should and dulls the experience a bit. I don’t want my metaphorical money back or anything, but I am a bit disappointed.

Bottom line: Proggy tech heads will love this. It’s not like Contrarian haven’t had those finger-twisting guitars and bowel-rupturing drumming this whole time, but they’re going to lose the fans who favored their toe-tapping melodic side when Kollias was at the helm. If they continue folking up their stuff more and can rein in the showboating a bit, no doubt they can still put out some of their best work. It’s their choice - either way, respect to them.