We All Die (Laughing): U Jam?

One of 2013’s most fascinating records is Secrets Of The Sky’s To Sail Black Waters, a four-song tour de force that patiently unfolded for listeners like a film by Thomas Vinterberg about ancient nautical maps. That is, Waters confined itself to charted waters but visited each of metal’s coldest landmasses: blackened doom, post-metal, and Opethian prog, for starters. Taken together, these stops plot a dark, unsafe journey throughout which listeners best stay frosty lest creeping fear clobber us into insensibility. Great jams.

And likewise, We All Die (Laughing)’s Thoughtscanning (out Tuesday) crosses different lands where different tongues are spoken. It’s episodic depressive metal, like Waters, but WAD(L) does away with songs to present one 33-minute opus that varies like an album — but has the neatness of a single song, if not the symmetry. It both impresses (you respect it) and satisfies (you love it). On my first listen, I kept meaning to leave the room to fetch my forgotten hot cocoa as soon as the album/song hit a lull. It didn’t, but my now-tepid beverage was an appropriately sad counterpart to my second spin. U jam?

Pre-order Thoughtscanning by We All Die (Laughing) here and here.