Huron - Mary Celeste Review

Sean Palmer – Vocals
Neil Sims – Guitar & Vocals
Phill Griffin – Bass & Vocals
Rory Conroy – Drums & Vocals

I feel incredibly ignorant for not having heard of Plymouth’s highly regarded metal band, Huron. It was this same ignorance that made me look upon the cover artwork of their second album with some disdain and wonder what I had done to deserve having to review a “Pirate Metal” CD, undoubtedly with plenty of “Yaarrr”, added “Yohoho” with a hint of “Thar she blows” and the required guitar solo by Captain Hook in a baroque fashion. However, what I got when I hit play on my CD player was totally unexpected, and a moment of “Wait, what? Is this Anselmo’s new band?”

Huron as it turns out is a band that doesn’t know if it wants to sound like Pantera or Metallica, and I absolutely mean this in a good way. With the inevitable comparisons between Sean Palmer and Phil Anselmo, then what of Huron’s Neil Sims and the late legendary figure of Dimebag Darrell? The truth is that Dimebag was one of a kind with a unique brutal sound, and although that might seem unkind to Sims, it has to be said that Huron’s guitarist is an exceptional talent in his own right too, and dare I say it, there is an element of Dimebag’s swagger in Sims’ playing.

With the opening broadside of the first track “Branded”, I thought that “Mary Celeste” may just descend into an unholy racket, but as the whole band kicked in, the groove is “Pantera tight”, giving me a well deserved kick up the backside to ditch any incorrect preconceptions I might have had. Title track “Mary Celeste” I felt had an intro that was surplus to requirements, I appreciate what they’re trying to do, but their music speaks volumes in itself. The third track “Disperse or we Fire” is absolutely brutal, with machine gun fire drums, and to my surprise the whole band not only keeps up with the frenetic pace, but locks into place perfectly, with Palmer howling the lyrics mercilessly over the top. It’s at this point that I can see why Bruce Dickinson is fighting their cause.

Fourth track, “Blood In Blood Out” is something of an eye opener, because it seemed as though just for a fleeting moment we had Anselmo and Hetfield in the studio at the same time, and this weird little switch happens a few more times elsewhere on the album. “All My Gods” features a fantastic Pantera’esque riff, with “Serpentswine” delivering more of the same. “EternalSea Pt1”, delivers a wonderful respite with some lovely acoustic guitar work, and some fragile vocals from Palmer. “Suffer” utterly shatters the ending silence of the previous track with a groove laden savagery. And then we have “Black Harvest”, and Palmer’s vocals again do that switch to the almost Hetfield style. The whole album is drawn to a close by “Eternal Sea Pt2”, not quite what was on the cards given what “Pt1" sounded like.

Pantera at times tried to be a bit too clever with their timings, but Huron thankfully avoid doing the same. Although these days this music genre isn’t quite as appealing to me as it once was, it has to be said this is a truly astonishing piece of work to behold, and in the absence of the sadly missed Pantera, and the dreaded fear of Metallica calling it a day in the not too distant future, much to my surprise, a British band, Huron, it seems is more then capable of stepping up and filling that musical void. An absolutely solid beast of an album.