It's hard to believe that I'll be flying out to Fire in the Mountains in a little more than a week. Of course, I'm spending a lot of time with bands on the bill. I had a lot of fun delving into Enslaved's catalog, and while I don't have the time to highlight another band with such an extensive library, I figured I could knock out a shorter discography or two. Which brings me to another one of the festival's big draws: the reunited ​SubRosa. 

A bit of level-setting before I dive into the individual albums. SubRosa is a band I've been passingly familiar with for many years. I've listened to them sporadically, and was completely aware of their respected position in the broader metal world. I am also a big fan of the first album by The Keening, the solo project of SubRosa vocalist Rebecca Vernon. I was fortunate enough to catch The Keening live a couple years ago (pictured above), and figured that was probably the closest I'd get to seeing SubRosa live. The main reason I never spent much time diving into SubRosa's catalog is that I was getting the itch of female-fronted, string-heavy doom scratched by bands like Grayceon. But now with a SubRosa reunion set coming up in the near future, it's the perfect time to dive more deeply into their music.

One final note: There is also a band called SubRosa that released a single album in the 1990s. It's very different than what this SubRosa does, but honestly pretty good! Check it out if you want some heavy-ish indie rock. 

The Worm Has Turned: Right off the bat, I owe you a mea culpa. When I started this project, I didn't see this album anywhere online, so I had a paragraph here about this album's unavailability and started with SubRosa's first album on a label, Strega. While I was firing up their final album, I noticed that this one is available on an obscure little platform called Bandcamp. Which I use every single week. So while you're reading this first, it's actually the last album I listened to. Sigh. Anyway. I'm actually glad it worked out this way, because immediately I said to myself "Hey, I know this song!" The Worm Has Turned is very much a demo, and many of these songs ultimately show up in more polished forms on Strega. This is the band at its most raw and punky, and it's pretty interesting to listen to it after their most polished output. An interesting curio in the band's history for sure. 

Strega: The first SubRosa album would have fit very nicely into the alternative rock scene of the 90s. While there are a few heavier moments, this sounds and feels a lot more like a band that would have gotten signed to a major label in the alternative/grunge frenzy of the late 90s. "Black Joan" in particular reminds me a lot of PJ Harvey's 90s output. The structure of these songs is also quite different than the epic doom tracks on later albums - other than the six-minute title track, most of the songs on this album are around three minutes long. Strega is definitely an album from a band that hasn't evolved into its final form yet, but nevertheless the songs on it a catchy and atmospheric. I'd call this album a strong start. 

No Help for the Mighty Ones: No gradual evolution for SubRosa, I see. The previous album may not have felt like a true doom album, but that's absolutely not the case for No Help for the Mighty Ones. While the first track, "Borrowed Time, Borrowed Eyes," sounds like it could have fit on Strega, the second track, "Beneath the Crown," is unquestionably a doom track - it's eight minutes of slowly building heaviness with both clean and growled vocals and plenty of atmosphere. From then on, it's a case of "The doom shall continue until morale doesn't improve." The rest of the album is slow, gloomy, and fuzzy, save for the folky a cappella song "House Carpenter," which shows of the band's Americana influences. 

More Constant Than the Gods: Like many people, this is the album I was most familiar with from SubRosa's catalog. Widely considered their apex, More Constant Than the Gods is a perfect encapsulation of their layered, soaring doom. This album is one that really proves the value of starting at the beginning - comparing tracks like "The Usher" to basically anything off Strega makes it pretty obvious how much they changed from their earlier days. While "The Usher" is their most-played track on YouTube Music, to me "No Safe Harbor" is the perfect distillation of SubRosa's music. It's heavy and epic, but also features beautiful vocal harmonies and gentle flute over a wall of distorted guitars. It's the song I'd play if someone asked me "So, what does this SubRosa band sound like?"

For This We Fought the Battle of Ages: My immediate reaction is that For This We Fought the Battle of Ages is fairly similar to More Constant Than the Gods, but a little heavier. Albums that follow a band's breakout are always tricky and often suffer in comparison, and after one listen I'd say this falls into that category. It's an incredibly solid album with no real flaw to speak of, but if I'm going to listen to one SubRosa album, it's probably going to be More Constant nine times out of 10.

And there you have it! This was a fun one - SubRosa's discography is solid from beginning to end, with enough growth over the years to keep things from blending together, especially when their demo is included in the mix. I completely understand why there's so much excitement for the reunion at Fire in the Mountains, which Rebecca Vernon discussed in an interview with New Noise Magazine a couple months ago, which you can read here.