Bask – The Turning
Season of Mist – 2025
Rock, Metal, Doom, Post, Prog, Psych, Stoner
Rated: *****
Of course we loved the fact that Ruff Majik drove a thousand miles to fill in for Bask at the Into The Void Festival in Leeuwarden last year. Cause we love those crazy South African bastards! On the other side of that coin, we were incredibly sad not to experience Bask again. And even more distressed because of the reason they had to pull out. Hurricane Helene flooded their studio, destroyed their neighborhood and shattered many of the lives around them. And even though much or all of the new album The Turning had already been recorded pre-hurricane, you cannot deny that some of that stress and pain must have seeped through in the final recordings, mixing and mastering, if only in spiritual energy. Bask. The fourpiece came together somewhere around the year of our lord 2013 and released their first album a year later. American Hollow was out of this world, different and yet o’ so earthy. A must hear album that used the spacey and psychedelic elements to paint wondrous landscapes, that keep you grounded and yet ever flowing, thanks in part due to the metal parts, the riffs and the Southern rock and Americana influences. They deepened and perhaps darkened that sound with the following Ramble Beyond from 2017. More progressive and with angular touches, it was a prelude to the album that blew both of those out of the water. Aptly titled III followed in 2019 and set a new standard for themselves. Vibrant, clear and thoughtful, there is no note out of place. There is something spiritual about the entire atmosphere. Something worthwhile and something that will guide you along a path to something holy. It feels like you are swimming in the most wonderfully clear lake of water. And those Americana moments, add even more glory to something that is already so lively, high spirited and full of energy. The III album is without a doubt extremely meticulous and highly melodic. And ever since that release the four have been working on The Turning…
At first... The Turning feels dense and troublesome; it clouds your mind and overwhelms you. Even though it starts out slowly and open, with intro Chasm setting the scene and In The Heat Of The Dying Sun, slowly building towards that first intense and straddling maelstrom. Vocals keeping you buoyant as the rhythms whirl around you and the drums try to drag you down. And at the moment when it all engulfs you and you are about to give up and let the music swallow you whole, that’s when it happens, when the melody surfaces and the entire composition starts to vibrate at an entirely different level. When the overpowering sensation becomes exhilaration and Bask becomes the edge you want to stroll along, with eye closed and arms wide open. The vocals and guitar loop becoming those high white notes, which turns the rest almost into slow motion smoke that moves backwards. Until that harsh vocal punctuation, pushes you forward again and shoves you over the edge… And this is just the opening track, but The Turning has eight and lasts for forty minutes. Labyrinthian by default the tracks eight tracks weave this entirely different universe, where anything can happen and everything does. What seemed like a dead-end a minute ago turns into a shimmering archway the next and as the vocals spin their tale, the different instruments all get their moment to encapsulate or spotlight the theme or figure. The rotating The Traveller, shoving off and closing in, much like In The Heat Of The Dying Sun did. But with more width to the vistas it traverses. The hallow The Cloth, chiming and taking the dense parts into Sanctus territory, before leaving you on an Appalachian trail with a storms raging all around you. Dig My Heels has a piano part that serves as the perfect breathing moment before that too turns into a moving M.C. Escher castle. Lofty and august, the structuring of the Dig My Heels has you continuously spinning on your… Sorry… Unwound, has even an even grander arcadian atmosphere, and soon it will be traversing into the farthest reaches imaginable, you will be there with those tones. Long Lost Light brings it back again, grounding it with a piano that could make the moon go out in the middle of the night. And the rain going back up again. And that cello. Breathtaking. Title track The Turning, searing all their myriad ways through and through with a Western and Americana touch, in debt to the guitar and the horn. And as the vocals start, you sway in the wind they’ve created, you feel the heat of the fires everywhere and the storm it might invoke. This is an album for the ages. For all corners of the world, forever…
(Written by JK)
