DEMO by Black
Spring
Album type; demo
Release: 23rd of
June 2014.
Demo track
listing:
1. Love is…
2. Hospital Bed
3. Reptiles
Band Members:
Fog – Bass
Col – Guitar
Mark – Vox
Steo – Drums
Review
It was my 23rd
birthday three weeks ago. Following a night of guzzling sticky craft
beers and staring longingly at a bottle of Kraken rum, I slithered my
way into the front seat of the taxi that would be taking me home.
Now, while my recollection of these events are blurred and distorted,
I do remember the elderly taxi driver and I entered into a
conversation about music. Tommy, we’ll call him, loves his Trad
music. He’s also been known to crank out the Thin Lizzy when the
wife isn’t home, so he told me, the cheeky bastard. Anyway, our
journey is brief, but we seem to cover quite a bit of ground in our
musical discussion, a discussion that came to an abrupt end when he
glanced at my t-shirt and guessed that I enjoy listening to “bad
lad music”.
Bad lad music.
Dublin’s
four-piece Sludge Hydra, Black Spring, are bad lad music. Though only
forming this year, you could easily mistake them for veteran sewer
dwellers and amplifier pagans. We are currently living in an age
where bands are starting to actually refer to themselves as Sludge,
the term itself has become a fashion accessory for some of those
bands. For Black Spring, from where I’m standing, the term Sludge
is either being used as an L-plate for the moment, or the band are
dead set on reopening the sarcophagus of “bad lad music” and
letting the poisonous fumes released from it kill the entire crew.
Like a Saturday
morning hangover, Black Spring come at you suddenly. There’s no
kissing, no foreplay, and certainly no breakfast in bed. Often
compared to Nottingham’s Moloch, Black Spring deliver the kind of
music that wipes its snots (boogers, for my American friends) on its
sleeves, wears its hoodie up, and is constantly looking to score a
drug that will turn it into a giant tumor within the space of ten
minutes.
With this first
demo, Black Spring allows us to peek inside of their world. Their
sound is like that of a wall stripped of its paper, back to basics!
And because we are the generation that refers incessantly to Sludge,
it’s very hard to find new bands that truly encapsulate the sound
that comes to mind when it is mentioned. Black Spring have no such
problem with regards to definition; they are simply Sludge, they are
simply ugly, and they are simple. The music of Black Spring is
certainly not an attempt to reinvent the wheel, dare I say it; Black
Spring are probably more concerned with breaking the wheel . There
may not be anything new on this record, but why should that be a
problem? There are far too many ‘Sludge’ bands fiddling around
with synthesizers and tambourines, it’s always good to hear
something young with the attitude of the old.
Guitars that cough
wildly through a rough Southern drawl, drums that send sinister
vibrations through the floor. and distressing vocals to wake you up
from your Sabbath induced slumber. Black Spring might not be a
revelation, but they most certainly are one of the most poisonous,
knuckle-dragging bands in Ireland right now.
I fell out of the
taxi that night, holding up a fiver to the driver as if I were about
to give him his communion wafer, I stumbled around the garden for
half an hour and ended up falling asleep in a car.
Bad lad music. Yeah,
that’s about right.
Written by Liam Doyle
