ALBUM REVIEW: Sinistro - "Sangue Cassia"

By: Ernesto Aguilar

Album Type: Full length

Date Released: 05/01/ 2018

Label: Season Of Mist

Think a heavier Massive Attack, a dash of post-rock, a helping of menace and a blend of orchestration that makes it really an interesting listen.  This is exceptional stuff for a band you may not hear lots about, but they’re definitely worth your time.

"Sangue Cassia" CD//DD//LP track listing

1. Cosmos Controle

2. Lotus

3. Petalas

4. Vento Sul

5. Abismo

6. Nuvem

7. Gardenia

8. Cravo Carne

The Review:

Most people have heard of Cirque De Soleil, the French-Canadian aerial troupe that has evolved from a hipster, no-animal circus into an entertainment powerhouse in Las Vegas casinos, Beatles and Michael Jackson-themed acrobatic arena tours and worldwide television. Even if you have never attended, you have probably heard of Cirque's elaborate stunts and interpretative dance. It caters to the culturally curious, while staying relatively accessible to the suburbs. Its performances are punctuated by a rich score, one that melds influences from world music, contemporary rock and pop and live instrumentation in a fashion aimed at pulling together its often quirky tales. If you are familiar with Cirque's soundtrack, hearing Sinistro is probably one of the few times you'll be brought back to that mental space of being inside one of the act's big tops.

Such a comparison is a compliment and not a put down. Cirque has a fine attention to detail and effortlessly sets up a scene in a way most musicians struggle with. "Sangue Cassia" is an intelligent and infinitely listenable album. However, the comparison may also serve as fair warning to you, generous listener. If you read the standard descriptions of Sinistro as doom or a rock/metal derivative, you will soon learn the five-piece is not. It shares an atmospheric or tonal quality of doom, possibly – most strongly on cuts like "Cosmos Controle" and "Cravo Carne" – yet it's not that really. It is instead a dash of post-rock, a helping of menace and a blend of orchestration that makes it really an interesting listen. Think a heavier Massive Attack. You may not like it if Morbid Angel or Tombs are your jams, though.

The Portuguese band has been around a minute – 2012 to be exact – but it seemed to take off in 2013, when it added vocalist Patricia Andrade. Andrade brings to Sinistro a particular beauty to the double-guitar stylings of Rick Chain and Ricardo Matias. You will soon discover her range is formidable; songs like "Lotus" and "Vento Sul" are an outstanding showcase for what Andrade does best, using her strong voice to draw the emotion out of Sinistro's heady blend of an experience, creatively supported by Paulo Lafaia on drums and Fernando Matias on bass and synths.

"Sangue Cassia" is at its greatest when his forceful guitars show out on tracks such as "Petalas" or "Abismo." Andrade is commanding with her singing (it's clean, by the way), while the bass and drums foment the energy. A post-rock song like "Nuvem" matches Andrade's ethereal vocals with droning rhythm and guitars. The noise influence on "Gardenia" has underlying hints of paradoxical subtlety. Overall, across these divergent selections, is an aesthetic that has a distinctly symphonic flair. It's not the Carach Angren kind of symphonic, but it has a 'big' feel. Exceptional stuff for a band you may not hear lots about, and worth your time.

"Sangue Cassia" is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Blood of Sokar - "Blood of Sokar"

By: Ernesto Aguilar

Album Type: Full length

Date Released: 25/08/ 2017

Label: Lighten Up Sounds

From the opening song, "Cælestibus," cresting into "Hallucinatus," there is an unfathomable well of torment and apoplexy. The music's dirge only heaps dirt upon the exasperation that sets in. Blood of Sokar's thick bass and sludge-infested guitar lines virtually guarantee this temperament will not cease.  This Seattle-based act, which transcends funeral doom and blackened doom, delivers exactly the kind of recording that fear is made of.

 

“Blood of Sokar “CS//DD track listing:

1. Cælestibus

2. Hallucinatus

3. Hecatomb

4. Mortem Ventum

The Review:

One of the most disturbing horror films of the last few years, depending on who you ask, was 2015's “Baskin”. The New York Times called the Turkish movie, "a buffet for gore enthusiasts, without ever totally losing its elegance — unless your definition of that word could never encompass a graphic disembowelment or an unexpected stabbing of an eye." It is in truth quite a brutal fantasy, filled with mythic monsters and a curious tale, and quite a lot of violence.

Without spoiling it – and if you like the harsher brands of horror signified by the New French Extremity era of works like “Martyrs” and “Dans Ma Peau/In My Skin”, “Baskin” may be for you – there is a moment when the motion picture's protagonists approach the Ottoman Era building that once housed a police station. It is just the moment before Hell truly breaks loose.

If that moment of “Baskin”, where feet unknowingly tread upon this ignoble place, had a soundtrack, Blood of Sokar's self-titled debut would be it.

The Seattle-based act, which transcends funeral doom and blackened doom, delivers exactly the kind of recording that fear is made of. The heaviness screams and indecipherable vocals are stagnant as an abandoned structure with its own stories untold. You can feel those spirits cut right through you in a track like "Hecatomb," with its dissonant caws that at last merge into something sounding almost melodic. Hard to access, but rattling and memorable this debut is.

Over its four-song, 37-minute tale, Blood of Sokar tells a story that is largely one of your imagination. This is primarily because the recording's vocals are so thickly layered and droned out that your mind has to paint the picture. Such vocals are harder to pull off than you might think, simply because they form songs that are not the conflict-context-unity of your usual songwriting. The listener is challenged to see the song as a complete work, and to be part of the music as art. Lots of doom and black metal offer concept albums and stories behind and within their songs. This self-titled release is purely a tale you conjure. Hence it is difficult to recall a release that did this style very effectively since Diamanda Galas' 1993 masterpiece “Vena Cava”, a representation of the effects of dementia brought on by HIV (see Galas' 1991 live performance album “Plague Mass” as precursor to this story) or 1996's “Schrei X”, a homage to German avant garde music. Blood of Sokar nevertheless does an admirable and at many turns riveting take on this approach.

From the opening song, "Cælestibus," cresting into "Hallucinatus," there is an unfathomable well of torment and apoplexy. The music's dirge only heaps dirt upon the exasperation that sets in. Blood of Sokar's thick bass and sludge-infested guitar lines virtually guarantee this temperament will not cease.

Blood of Sokar is an overpowering new addition to funeral doom, and one that may just score a future nightmare.

“Blood of Sokar” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Crackhouse - "Be No One, Be Nothing"

By: Ernesto Aguilar

Album Type: Full length

Date Released: 06/10/2017

Label: Argonauta Records

The music the performers put forth is like a flare flung out on a dark street, either as a vain hope for rescue or to light up one's march to an abyss. No doubt you will leave the strangling blackness created over three songs and 50 minutes from the darkly titled "Be No One, Be Nothing" with just that feeling.

“Be No One, Be Nothing” CD//DD track listing

1. Burden

2. Harva

3. Realm

The Review:

Every once in awhile, there are metal releases that are especially mesmerizing. The music the performers put forth is like a flare flung out on a dark street, either as a vain hope for rescue or to light up one's march to an abyss. No doubt you will leave the strangling blackness created over three songs and 50 minutes from the darkly titled "Be No One, Be Nothing" with just that feeling.

The debut full length by Tours, France's Crackhouse follows its two-song EP released in February. There, you got a taste of the trio's simply violating ethos. Crushing guitars of sludge, ingredients that bake prog-rock, heavy blues and stoner metal in the cake. You get the picture. Think Dopethrone through a flaming lawn mower. Good stuff.

And so here we are. Don't let the name – I know, I know… they're trap houses, not crack houses, these days – deter you from taking in the savagery before you. What stands out most on Crackhouse's three cuts is the aesthetic. How else can you describe songs that feel exactly right -- not too long, not bloated, but rather tell a compelling story in the time they need? "Burden" begins slowly, a formula that feels all too familiar, before drenching you in an expansive wall of guitar, bass and drums, with effects flitting in on occasion. With experienced regional artists Simon Morlec, Jean-Baptiste Carton and Guillaume Vailant making up the group, you are quickly introduced through this first track to Crackhouse's intelligent arrangements and intriguing songwriting. The vocals veer from the typical sludge blueprint – instead there are well-done echoes and emoting that is not the growling you know well, and it works. A song this big, 18-plus minutes, makes some tempo changes as the story progresses. The bass lines sway throughout, steadying what can at points be swinging emotions within the opener.

The closing track matches its opening partner and just over 22 minutes. "Realm" has a copacetic space rock build that succeeds by not relying on classic metal tropes that sometimes creep in during these styles of introductions. Into that third minute, Crackhouse churns a gratifying post-rock pace that feels original. Drums pick up, however, and the band matches them with harder guitars and faster bass. The trio does not let up from the first one-third of the music until the end; the music is intense and vocals are tenacious.

One of the biggest difficulties for stoner and doom bands that attempt massive compositions is not sounding derivative or overlong. Middle track "Harva" strikes a blistering balance with its impressive guitars and songwriting, while upholding the style Crackhouse generated attention for. Although it could be said its open and close could be tighter, the band's complete debut "Be No One, Be Nothing" frankly would not be as excellent. Crackhouse creates an oppressive release certain to remind you why it is a name to be watched for in metal into future recordings.

"Be No One, Be Nothing" is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Low Flying Hawks - "Genkaku"

By: Ernesto Aguilar

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 25/08/2017

Label: Magnetic Eye Records

Low Flying Hawks come at you with a chugging, thick mélange of sound you will not soon forget, there's an aesthetic through this release that makes their  second foray sound quite breathtaking.

"Genkaku" CD//DD//LP track listing:

1.) Smile

2.) Uncool

3.) Virgin Witch

4.) Space Wizard

5.) Hallucination

6.) Twilight

7.) Sinister Waves

The Review:

Sporting a bond to sludge metal icons the Melvins is never a bad thing. And such a relationship is all the more noteworthy when your bag is self described as ambient metal, known otherwise depending on who you ask as drone metal. In the case of Low Flying Hawks, they're even closer to the Washington State legends than throwaway words in a press kit. As Low Flying Hawks features Crover's peerless stylings as well as Melvins' producer Toshi Kasai and guest vocals from King Buzzo himself.

Do not come to the recording expecting the Melvins' crunch, though. On its successor to the 2016 debut “Kōfuku”, Low Flying Hawks instead come at you with a chugging, thick mélange of sound you will not soon forget.

"Genkaku" (Japanese for “hallucination” or illusion”) is a mind-bending journey. The swirling guitars and indecipherable words in "Uncool" are indicative of that trip – dreamlike, or nightmarish, paths lain bare with Crover's pensive drum duties. A song such as "Hallucination" has almost a shoegaze feel to it, even though it is most decidedly doom in nature. The discerning listener will find a bit of a psychedelic rock influence in several tracks. Although you may hear such especially in our sludge metal friends, prototypical notions of 'Melvins side project' this is not. Rather, there's an aesthetic through this release that makes Low Flying Hawks' second foray sound quite breathtaking.

At the same time, the release is punishing when it needs to be. As in “Kōfuku”, the sophomore recording takes plenty of toilsome turns. The big sound is present and accounted for, complete with multilayered instrumentation and riffs that build to impressive arcs throughout. You have to appreciate the King Buzzo-fronted track "Space Wizard" for its pacing in this regard, as well as that of "Virgin Witch," which is one of the most Melvins sounding songs, in all of the best ways, on this recording. All in all, Low Flying Hawks exceeds the anticipation one might have about its members' histories. The band also gets you thinking about how they can expand past that.

"Genkaku" is available to preorder/buy here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

ALBUM REVIEW: Harvestman - "Music For Megaliths"

By: Jack Taylor

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 19/05/2017

Label: Neurot Recordings

an ethereal bagpipe drone, oscillating around your speakers, waves of guitar effects wash over you and the whole choir of eldritch noise comes creeping back into view, then departing again, This is” Music For Megaliths”, the latest record by Harvestman, and as expected, it’s everything you’d want from a Harvestman record and definitely worth a listen for anyone into drone, ambient or progressive music.

“Music For Megaliths” CD//DD//LP track listing:

01. The Forest Is Our Temple
02. Oak Drone
03. Ring Of Sentinels
04. Cromlech
05. Levitation
06. Sundown
07. White Horse

The Review:

It starts with an ethereal bagpipe drone, oscillating around your speakers, a kind of psychedelic clarion call melody. Waves of guitar effects wash over you, then the song picks up momentum with a familiar heartbeat chug, chug, chug. It just keeps on building and building. A premonitory guitar melody plucked on an acoustic, then sliding, bending. You wonder where it’s going to go, but the song reveals that the destination isn’t important, as it slides off into a dull hum, before expiring. And then coming back to life, briefly, the whole choir of eldritch noise creeping back into view, then departing again. This is” The Forest is Our Temple”, the opening track on the latest record by Harvestman, ‘Music For Megaliths’, and as expected, it’s everything you’d want from a Harvestman record.

Harvestman is essentially a Steve Von Till solo project, but differs from the albums that carry his name in that there are next to no vocals on Harvestman, only an assorted array of instruments. It’s obvious that Von Till loves just noodling around in a studio and seeing what he can come up with by stacking tracks and playing with effects, venturing into the musical hinterland, and Harvestman is the focused, recorded outcome of this time.

If you’ve heard this side project before then it’ll offer no surprises, but it’s another excellent edition to the Neurosis legend’s back catalogue. Aside from the excellent opener, there are six other tracks on this album. “Oak Drone” is more of the same as the first, “Ring of Sentinels” features a nice little drum loop and soothing bass line, “Cromlech” has barely any structure and is simply just a dazzling droney joy feast, while closer “White Horse” is probably the only song that could come close to appearing on one of Von Till’s folk albums – haunting acoustic melody accompanied by foreboding vocals and the usual ambiguous, enchanting lyrics.

Another solid Harvestman release – the short length arguably lets it down, as ‘Lashing the Rye’ was twice as long and more varied, but definitely worth a listen for anyone into drone, ambient or progressive music.

“Music For Megaliths” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

RIFF REWIND (26/05/2013): Northumbria - "The Silver Forest"

Toronto based ambient metal duo Northumbria were formed in 2011 by former... Holoscene members Jim Field and Dorian Williamson. Using only guitar and bass mega amplified and recorded live, Northumbria create a wall of improvised drones that take the listener on a sonic journey through a dystopian landscape. 

With seven releases to their name in the last 6 years, today we’re rewinding back 4 years to the day, with a review of Northumbria’s second release “The Silver Forest”. So join us, as we continue on our quest to trawl through The Sludgelord archives to present the best albums you may have missed.  So if you overlooked this band/album, be sure to remedy your error by checking out our review and the record is streaming in full below. 

By: Matt Fitton

Album Type: EP

Date Released: 17/05/2013

Label: Independent

These movements of music blend  seamlessly within each other and are hauntingly potent. Subtle fades, stirring melodic parts, and sometimes a heartbreaking weight. All of this creates real emotions, and real responses, from this very real music. The very best drone is often light as a feather, but in soulful terms heavy as hell.

“The Silver Forest” track listing:

1). Motion of Clouds

2). The Sun Also Rises

3). Silver Forest

The Review:

Based in Toronto, Northumbria are an ambient drone duo that records live and only uses bass and guitar to weave their lush brand of sonic tapestry. They make music of desolation, serenity and great beauty, completely amplified (quite literally) to the nines. They've also just made a new piece of music available, the extremely impressive 'The Silver Forest'.

I was discussing this with my editor earlier, and we both touched upon the fact that what we love about drone is the innate ability that the true masters of the craft have to transport a listener to a place of complete solitude. And that is exactly what this new offering manages to accomplish in spades.

'The Silver Forest' is very much escapist music. Sounds to attempt introspection from, to search within yourself and your surroundings. Human contact and complexity is all very well and good, but we all need to slow not just ourselves, but our minds down sometimes too. Maybe to a pace of a long past way of life, or thinking. Northumbria construct soundscapes that will genuinely help you on that voyage.

The piece is composed as just one track, but listed in three distinct parts: 'Motion of Clouds', followed by 'The Sun Also Rises', and concluding with 'Silver Forest'. All blend seamlessly within each other and are hauntingly potent. Subtle fades, stirring melodic parts, and sometimes a heartbreaking weight. All of this creates real emotions, and real responses, from this very real music. The very best drone is often light as a feather, but in soulful terms heavy as hell.

Before this review I was completely unaware of Northumbria, but they have been covered on the blog before. Please delve back in time and discover those articles, as I have, and treat yourself to some incredible experiences. And check out 'The Silver Forest' right now, and ease your mind for just a moment. Let Northumbria move you somewhere else, somewhere desolate, somewhere calm and yet euphoric.

“The Silver Forest” is available here

Band info: bandcamp || facebook

Tangled Thoughts of Leaving - 'Yield To Despair' (Album Review)

By: Richard Powley

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 17/04/2015

Label: Pelagic Records

Fans of instrumental music, soundtracks and post-metal will undoubtedly find much to love within ‘Yield to Despair’, but to describe it as simply another post-metal album would be to do the band a great disservice. Their fresh and nuanced take on the genre, including noir-jazz and noise amidst crushing walls of sound is something to truly behold.

‘Yield To Despair’ CD//DD//LP track listing:

1). The Albanian Sleepover  - Part one

2). The Albanian Sleepover – Part Two

3). Shaking Off Futility

4). Downbeat

5). Yield To Despair

Tangled Thoughts of Leaving is:

Ron Pollard | Piano, Synth
BeHn Stacy | Drums, Noise
Andrew McDonald | Guitar
Luke Pollard | Bass, Samples 

The Review:

Owing as much to ambient, jazz and noise music as they do to the slow-building and weighty sound of post metal, Tangled Thoughts of Leaving deliver atmosphere in spades throughout ‘Yield to Despair’.

As the first song reaches its mid-way point, you have been treated to a weighty and slow building exercise in tension, before the jazzy piano runs that have defined TTOL as something unique amongst the instrumental rock scene, take centre stage and lead the track to its thrilling conclusion.   It’s here that TTOL have made a vast improvement, the restraint used in the playing allows a much more crushing tone to envelop the piece, the piano no longer stealing from the overall sound but engaging with and elevating the drama of the song to a higher degree than before.

As “The Albanian Sleepover” reaches its second part, a more noir-ish feel takes over amidst a Dillinger-like yet entirely more stable flurry of percussion. As the song ebbs and flows, different lines and instruments come to the forefront before the song reduces itself to a simple noisescape. A lone piano line reminiscent of Bohren & der Club of Gore accompanies the various scraping sounds and noise-work, creating an intense and ominous atmosphere. From here the song becomes a crushing dirge bringing to mind the mountainous sound of Omega Massif as it approaches in its thrilling climax.

Employing differing tactics and skills to create a momentous atmosphere is where TTOL really shine. Not once does any facet of the music sound out of place, and while different instruments and players do undoubtedly take centre stage at various points throughout ‘Yield to Despair’, it is never for the sake of virtuosic arrogance and only serves the mood they are trying to elicit.   What feels like the albums centre-piece is ‘Downbeat’  where all of this becomes most complete, with a breath taking and emotionally taxing example of everything that Tangled Thoughts of Leaving do so well, delivered with absolute precision throughout its 18 minute runtime. It feels like the albums most complete “song” and also its most energetic piece, all the instruments blending together to paint a picture of pure destruction.   

Fans of instrumental music, soundtracks and post-metal will undoubtedly find much to love within ‘Yield to Despair’, but to describe it as simply another post-metal album would be to do the band a great disservice. Their fresh and nuanced take on the genre, including noir-jazz and noise amidst crushing walls of sound is something to truly behold.

‘Yield To Despair’ is available here

FFO: OMEGA MASSIF, BOHREN & DER CLUB OF GORE, JOHN ZORN, GUAPO, NEUROSIS.    

Band info: bandcamp | facebook | official

Bong - ’We Are, We Were And We Will Have Been’ (Album Review)

By: Joosep Nilk

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 26/05/2015

Label: Ritual Productions

In the form of their seventh full-length, Bong are offering an alluring amalgam where they’ve shedded their usual abysmal heaviness in exchange for a slightly more mild, yet still fathomless venture into unscathed spheres.

’We Are, We Were And We Will Have Been’ CD//DD//LP track listing:

1). Time Regained

2). Find  Your Own Gods

The Review:

Having previous released six full-length releases where the average track’s running-time I would assume falls somewhere in the 15 minute-range, Bong are obviously not seeking to win general acclamation. They seem to reside in an untouched mythical land of their own where patience and attentiveness have yet to be rendered lost arts. If allowed a simile, Bong’s craft might be called a rift, and a massive one at that, opening to something otherworldy and casting light on what was previously not evident, to be allowed a look into something larger than itself. They are true masters of aural weaving and once you sit down amidst their all-encompassing tone it’s difficult to not feel soothed by it.

A shared title of both a Proust novel and the opener of Bong’s seventh outing, with ’Time Regained’ Bong waste none and immediately set down the drone, which is no less than tremendous. Building onto the ominious eruption and setting into a measured drumming pattern, it steadily builds towards the towering proclamation that you’ll meet amidst the hum, as the voice declares ’We are giants in time’. None of it is to terrorize or intimidate but to simply lay claim to the separate paradigm of which they are indisputable kings. Meditative, propulsive drone through not only instruments but also voice! Apt kings indeed.

Whereas the first track was more of a statement of intent, the slightly lengthier second outing delves further into the chasm. Carrying the title of ’Find Your Own Gods’, after the poetic decree that professes the necessity of seeking out genuine truths on one’s own, it begins forebodingly with the guitar-licks glistening and giving off the audible equivalent of glancing at a near-still gleaming water surface. Then the drumming comes in, first in the form of bongo hits, deliberately sparse and tribal sounding, as if embarking on some naval voyage. The sitar and synths bring along a certain sense of profundity, as if Bong’s vessel was seeking to reach the very breaches of infinity. That sense is indeed most fitting when you revisit the utterance heard prior and also consider the choice of album title. The sounds come billowing, at times intensifying and receding, guiding into a serene momentum. Flowing in accord with the glacial pace it set out with, they gradually invade the recesses of your mind and erode all redundant thoughts. As the cymbals come in alongside the bongos, the resonance has grown way denser and concepts have long lost any clear and discernable meaning. Not that any notions were crucial here to begin with.

In the form of their seventh full-length, Bong are offering an alluring amalgam where they’ve shedded their usual abysmal heaviness in exchange for a slightly more mild, yet still fathomless venture into unscathed spheres. The compositions sound so muffled and timeworn but it seems completely appropriate when delving into matter so permanent. It’s more of a mini-album compared to Bong’s usual colossal outings, but it’s surely one capable of cleansing one’s being of the inessential, thus being no mere digression but a necessary turn to reclaim that which is actual and substantial. Cosmic doom at its best.

’We Are, We Were And We Will Have Been’ is available here

Band info: Facebook | Bandcamp

Make - ‘The Golden Veil’ (Album Review)

“The Immortal” features some dreamy guitar layering and singing in a pleasant lower register before fading out and returning with a sludge section that has more in common with slower His Hero Is Gone than Isis or Neurosis.

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 20/07/2015

Label: Self-Released

‘The Golden Veil’ LP//DD track listing:

1. I Was Sitting Quietly, Peeling Back My Skin

2. Breathe

3. The Immortal

4. We Are Coiled*

5. The Absurdist

6. The Architect

7. In the Final Moments, Uncoiling*

* Digital Exlusive

Make is:

Scott Endres | Guitar, Vocals

Spencer Lee | Bass, Vocals

Matt Stevenson | Drums

Review:

Still a relatively new band, MAKE has been around for five years, and while they’ve released a couple of EPs and a cover of Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs”, ‘The Golden Veil’ is their first full length album since 2011. The band specializes in droning, atmospheric sludge, though with this album, the non-metal ambient moments make up a much bigger chunk.

That isn’t always such a bad thing. The album opens with “I Was Sitting Quietly, Peeling Back My Skin”, a song that focuses on a sort of soft static distortion and ominous humming noise before settling into something of a dark, western acoustic song in the second half. It does a tremendous job of setting the stage and building anticipation for something massive in the following song. The problem is that the remaining material on the album never really meets that anticipation.

“Breathe” gets underway with a solitary, pounding drum beat. Right away, one of the issues that hampers the album somewhat becomes clear. The drum sound is somewhat incongruous with what the music is trying to accomplish. The drum sound, and the snare in particular, being pretty similar to that of Chuck Biscuits from the first Danzig album worked in the context of bluesy metal or on old Discharge albums. But in a more expansive sludge situation, it feels a bit dull and flat, taking some of the wind out of the album’s sails at key points throughout. If the drums were to have a more lively sound, and, again to be more specific: a bigger snare sound with snap and pop to it, the louder peaks of each song would carry that much more weight. Even when the songs hit an ebb in intensity, a more dynamic drum sound would be a noticeable improvement.

That’s not to say the album isn’t good or that it’s crippled by a normally minor recording choice. There’s plenty to dig into even if certain sound choices are less agreeable. Along with the aforementioned instrumental opener, “The Immortal” features some dreamy guitar layering and singing in a pleasant lower register before fading out and returning with a sludge section that has more in common with slower His Hero Is Gone than Isis or Neurosis.

Overall, the album is solid and enjoyable although it’s missing a couple of elements that keep it from really getting into the first tier of albums in this style. There’s plenty to latch onto and it’s always well done, but the big moments don’t hit hard enough and while the gentler moments are soothing and also make for some of the best material on the album, it also takes up a bit more time than it should.

Words by: Daniel Jackson

You can pick up digital and vinyl copies here.

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