Friday 17 February 2012

PALO VERDE - ZERO H(OUR ALBUM REVIEW

Zero Hour Cover Art

First up for me is a Two-girl instrumental Sludge/experimental/noise group from Portland. Palo Verde

Read more about them here, http://phratryrecords.com/bands/detail/palo_verde

These Girls don't mess about they record in a improvised manner and although they adopt a plug in and play philosophy it betrays the quality and cohesion of the tracks. What you get is slabs of Monolithic heavy guitars / wails of feedback and head crushing heavy drum fills.

Tracks though long pass easily constantly changing and although "improvised" have a structure while also evolving from the start . This album has excellent musicianship/production and for a two piece make an almighty noise. 

My Personal favourite is opener "Dark meadow for long night". With a spiralling opening riff giving way to a tribal-like drum beat and crashing Cymbals the drumming here reminds me of Kylesa, except they have two drummers this girl is pounding her kit herself, a sludge thick riff kicks in and from there the track ebbs and flows through passages of jaw-dropping heaviness and stop start grooves.

The four tracks here show what a talent these two have for crafting songs that hold your attention while pounding your brain with heavy grooves.

Recommended for fans of sludge/doom metal and bands such as Kylesa and Karma to Burn

At 4 songs and around 43 Minutes this is an album I'll be coming back to time and again and I'll be looking forward to more from this two-girl face-melting crew. 

The album is available here , http://paloverdeband.bandcamp.com/ with links to order in Various formats . 

Highly Recommended.