Listen: Kayo Dot’s Coffins Not Made Of Metal, Very Heavy

It’s easy to stick with artists who depart their native genre for softer sounds. Think of Katatonia, once an extreme metal act that’s now heavy as Peter Gabriel. Or think of Roxy Music, whose proto-cyber-theater punk gave way to featherweight dinner-jacket rock. Or think of the many acts whose coverage on MetalSucks garners comments that decry our wasting space on “not metal” (as if our site is called MetalOnlySucks). See, these are bands for metal people all the same: Though their creators may have changed idiom, they continue to apply the, y’know, mindset of a dangerous, fearless extreme artist to their new jams. In other words, the blanket isn’t your favorite material but it warms.

This bears a reminder even for followers of a weird heavy band like Kayo Dot. That is, it’s not a given that a fan of unpredictable music is open-minded; that fan may like only weird, heavy stuff. It may hurt that fan to behold a relatively normal (but elusive) outing like Coffins On Io; yet they’ll love its nods to the subterranean fog of 1970 Genesis, deep-well melodies of Type O Negative, and Helium’s unemotional emotion. Think of Coffins as a 2014 collaboration of Bryan Ferry and Opeth with production by Erik Wunder (Cobalt) and Paul Waggoner (Between The Buried And Me). Not metal, but very heavy.

Kayo Dot’s Coffins On Io came out Tuesday via The Flenser. Get it here and here.