Welcome to The Sludgelord!
Presenting up to date news, reviews & interviews for riff addicts around the world.
This is 'Liberation through Amplification.'
It’s
a special edition for the 666 PACK REVIEW this month! THE SLUDGELORD attended
Psycho Las Vegas recently, so this month we’re going to rate 6 bands that
played the festival. Between the non-stop shenanigans and Instagram takeover,
we found time to actually watch the bands. For future potential victims that
submit material to THE SLUDGELORD for
review, here’s some advice: This festival is where you
want to be someday! If you’re new to this, each and every month we handpick 6 review
submissions (this month six bands that played Psycho Las Vegas) and critique
them by only using 6 words, then we rate them on a scale from 1 to 666! Check out our Las Vegas themed rating scale
below:
1
– It would have nicer if their tour bus got lost in the desert on the way to
the festival.
2
– One of the Psycho Las Vegas guest DJs was Andrew W.K.,
he actually stirred up more excitement than the performance this band put on.
3
– It was kinda average, just like staying at The Excalibur Hotel and Casino
these days…
4 – You know the feeling that
you get free drinks while your gambling?
Yeahhhhh….
5
– This band deserves to have a Las Vegas casino named after them and they should
be the house band.
666
– They hit the progressive jackpot (Enter ching! ching! ching! ching! money
sounds here…)! Viva Psycho Las Vegas and
THE SLUDGELORD!
Caveat: Even though the 666 PACK REVIEW is meant to offer
humorous critique, there are no safe spaces here and your gripes will only make
you sound like a bellyacher.
THE SLUDGELORD is a picky listener…and doesn’t care what you
think of his opinions….
Sweden's Pissboiler have crafted a brilliant album of terrifying
proportions, creating a sense of tension and foreboding and pummelling the
listener with sledgehammer riffs.
“In The Lair Of Lucid Nightmares” CD//DD track listing:
1.
Ruins of the Past
2. Stealth
3. Pretend It Will End
4. Cutters
The Review:
There
are 3 types of heavy bands; those which employ speed and ferocity, those whose
use of atmosphere creates a tension and sense of foreboding and those who are
slow and forceful, pummelling listeners with Sledgehammer riffs. On 'In The Lair Of Lucid Nightmares',
Sweden's Pissboiler take the latter 2 and craft a
brilliant album of terrifying proportions.
Creeping from the murky chasms, 'Ruins
Of The Past' is 17 minutes of funeral procession-esque death/doom. Vocalist
LG (no, not that LG) produces a guttural roar that sounds like it's bellowed
from the 7th later of hell and the riffs saunter with My Dying Bride
like misery in tow. The production from band member Karl Wijk enhances each
element with each instrument clinging to their own space while bleeding nicely
into others. 'Stealth' comes as a bit
of a surprise with it's lonely jazzy bass riff dripping with chorus and reverb
and, at under 3 minutes, is the album's shortest track by far. The respite is
short lived as 'Pretend It Will End'
is utterly harrowing. Blood curdling growls and piercing shrieks team with
suicide inducing, slow riffs before the bells toll and things take a slight
turn with a riff reminiscent of Burning Witch. A very
disturbing sample from a doctor talking to her patient, sets the tone for final
track 'Cutters'; the atmosphere
builds slowly with cavernous growls and swelling guitar drones and never stops
the barrage of depressive doom. Some harsh screams burst through the bass heavy
droning making for a truly unsettling experience.
For a fairly unknown band to create something this comprehensive (and very
impressive) goes to show the talent that lurks in the darkest corners. If Sunn 0))) had released this, it would make the top 10 end
of year lists of several well known publications, but for those of us who judge
things on merit, it will most definitely be a contender, regardless of their
standing.
“In The Lair of Lucid
Nightmares” is available here
While
firmly a doom metal group, Mudbath is not afraid to introduce different
elements. With a shrieking vocal approach reminiscent of black metal and
flourishes you might otherwise associate with drone, Mudbath manages to make it
work.
France’s Mudbath is, likely for most listeners, going to be on the
positive end.
Now on their
third release, the foursome debuted in 2012 with an EP, followed by a 2015
full-length recording and now "Brine
Pool," their 2017 presentation. While firmly a doom metal group, Mudbath is not afraid to introduce different elements. With
a shrieking vocal approach reminiscent of black metal and flourishes you might
otherwise associate with drone, Mudbath manages to make
it work.
"Brine
Pool"
packs the most punch on songs like "Seventh
Circle," a reference to Dante’s
“Inferno”. There, Dante and Virgil
discover the place in Hell intended to punish the violent, from the war-makers
to the suicides to the blasphemers and the sodomites. Literary scholars have
for decades plumbed the Inferno’s imagery, including its host of gruesome
penalties in the Seventh Circle of Hell. It is fitting that this cut is at
right about the release’s middle, because it feels like a climax of the despair
and foreboding you hear from start to finish. You can almost feel as if the
vocals came straight from pools of boiling blood Dante once imagined, or from
Pholus, among the Seventh Circle’s patrolling centaurs, himself.
Whereas
"Red Desert Orgy," their
first release, had at many moments a slower, more raw build, and their "Corrado Zeller" sophomore had
implications of dirge, Mudbath’s latest
recording finds an intriguing merger of its past and present. The blues
influences you might have heard from the band before remain strong on songs
like "Fire" and elsewhere.
The opening cut "End Up Cold"
also launches with that bluesy seethe. Its crescendo, though, suggests a new
maturity. The vocals by Mika, Flo and Luke jump out at you methodically. The bass and electronic touches
added by Marco enhance the feeling
of dread.
Although the
songs still contain the rawness of old, there is an evolution afoot for Mudbath. Maybe the group, which had lineup changes in 2013,
is just more comfortable in its own skin (insert death metal joke here). Or
maybe it’s simply the camaraderie that suddenly blossoms in a new way after
many live shows and studio time together. Whatever it is, "Brine Pool" marks an invigorating
chapter for the French quartet. One has to be fascinated to see what comes
next.
“Godless Prophets
& the Migrant Flora” finds an exact middle ground between the elegant
melodicism of Darkest Hour’s earlier work and the feral muscle of their
previous album. The mixture is sure to please nearly all fans of the band, both
old and new.The result is twelve tracks
that simultaneously capture Darkest Hour at both their most tuneful and their
most assailing.
“Godless
Prophets & the Migrant Flora” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1. Knife in the Safe Room
2. This Is The Truth
3. Timeless Numbers
4. None Of This Is The Truth
5. The Flesh & the Flowers of Death
6. Those Who Survived
7. Another Headless Ruler of the Used
8. Widowed
9. Enter Oblivion
10. The Last of the Monuments
11. In The Name Of Us All
12. Beneath It Sleeps
The Review
Since
Darkest Hour strayed
from their melodeath roots in favor a more commercial metalcore sound on their
self-titled, eighth album in 2014, many new fans have flocked to the band’s
base. However, older fans of their melodic death metal sound have been
nervously twiddling their thumbs about what this would mean for the future of Darkest Hour’s
direction. That future arrives in the form of the Washington, D.C.
based quintet’s ninth LP, “Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora”,
their first original release for Goatsnake/Sunn O))) guitarist Greg Anderson’s label
Southern Lord
Recordings. It is also their first album to feature Converge
guitarist Kurt Ballou behind the soundboard, and if the names associated with
this album seem like they might be sending mixed messages about the album’s
stylistic direction, that’s because they are.
“Godless
Prophets & the Migrant Flora”finds
an exact middle ground between the elegant melodicism of Darkest Hour’s earlier
work and the feral muscle of their previous album. The mixture is sure to
please nearly all fans of the band, both old and new. The vibrant, flowing
guitar leads definitive of the band’s classic material reintroduce themselves
on “Godless
Prophets & the Migrant Flora”, which may be partially due to the
return of former guitarist Kris Norris, who, while not a full member of the
band again, does perform additional guitar layering on the album. “Godless
Prophets & the Migrant Flora” also sees vocalist John Henry return
to a style more closely approximating his work on early Darkest Hour, albeit
a tad harsher and more martial.
These
elements of Darkest Hour’s past works float atop an
amalgam of their newer, metalcore influenced sound. The elements of classic
melodeath that the band always impeccably recreated are set to a backdrop of
vicious aggression that provide a new kind of edge to Darkest Hour that one
never noticed was missing before. This is perhaps best exemplified by the
album’s tenth and possible standout track, “The Last of the Monuments”, which
mixes nimble guitar work, infectious melodies and ferocious attitude. “Godless
Prophets & the Migrant Flora” truly finds the best of both worlds
that Darkest Hour has
ventured into, removes them with a scalpel, and then slaps them onto a new
musical canvas. The result is twelve tracks that simultaneously capture Darkest Hour at both
their most tuneful and their most assailing.
“Godless Prophets &
the Migrant Flora”is available preorder/buyhere
Today's guests released one of the albums of the year
in 2014 with the brilliant “12 Areas”, indeed
Colchester-based instrumental sludge/post-metal band Telepathy are one of
the underground's best kept secrets.
They play unique and ambitious music, not so much songs, rather complex compositions,
music to get
lost in, the perfect juxtaposition of beautifully mellow and hideously brutal
passages which they execute with a remarkable intelligence. Telepathy are musical
conjurors, employing masterful tricks within the construct of their music,
which they deploy in unpredictable ways throughout their art and that is indeed
what they create, art in the truest sense, you never know what’s coming around
the corner but you can’t wait to find out.
With their demo EP "Fracture" and 2014 debut album "12 Areas" (Devouter Records/Tartarus Records)
receiving rave reviews, the band are on the cusp of creating their masterpiece
and their dedication to do things DIY, subscribing to their own rules, the band
are in a unique position of being embraced by fans of post-metal, hardcore,
sludge and progressive music alike, which is testament to the bands imaginative,
off-kilter and ambitious musical expressionism.
With Telepathy having
begun recording their second album and with a short European Tour set to kick off
next week, as we enter the final quarter of 2016, the band are confident that
they’re sonically better and in the throes of some much needed momentum than will
catapult their unquestionable talent to become one of the biggest and best
talents the UK has produced. Let us get
Amped & Doomed with the instrumental transcendents that are Telepathy.
SL: Can you give us an insight
into how you started playing music, leading up to the formation of Telepathy
Rich
(Guitars): I began playing music back when I was around 12/13,
I remember vividly my mother gifting me with a boxset of the first 8 Black Sabbath albums
for doing my 11+ (British school exam) and wanting to do nothing else but learn
to play the guitar and write music after that!
From there I learnt to play, and went through the
usual high school bands playing Kyuss covers and some formative original material. My first
semi-serious band was playing local shows and recorded a two track demo whilst
I was studying music technology at college, but ended soon after. That’s when
three of us in Telepathy
met and began working towards something more experimental, and representative
of our collective taste in music.
Piotr
(Guitars): Myself and everyone in the band, were always
interested in and inspired by all sorts of music. From classical, electronic
and dance to the heaviest metal. I
believe it took specific characters to meet and start creating the music that
this band plays. We all definitely have a love of instruments and sound, from
guitar to the synthesiser and of course, the belief that there is no such thing
as impossible.
Ted (Bass): I’ve been
interested in performing since I was very young. I used to write plays and
perform them for my parents; I sang in the school choir and also took acting
classes for several years. I actually started playing guitar when I was around
11 years old. My step-grandfather had a room full of vintage Fenders that I was
fascinated with. It was a jingle on a kid’s after school TV show that inspired
me to ask him to teach me. The jingle was just someone ripping a rad bluesy
solo and I thought it was so cool. I actually hadn’t played bass guitar in a
band at all until I joined Telepathy.
SL: Can you remember who or what inspired you to pick up
the guitar, bass? Are there any bands, guitarists, bassists currently on the
scene that continue to inspire you and push you to try new things?
Ted: I’m not necessarily impressed by a player’s technical prowess, what
matters to me most is how hard the player throws down. I caught Slabdragger at Red Sun Festival in
Cardiff a couple of weeks ago and Yusuf’s performance blew me away. I play
pretty hard but he’s on another level. Glenn from Grand Collapse is probably one of the best
drummers in the UK right now for me; that man can shred.
Piotr: It was
simply the love of the sound of heavy guitars and epic melodies. Since I was a little kid it has always grabbed
my attention. Guitar wasn’t my first choice, it was thanks to my parents and
older brother who introduced me to playing guitar, and the fact that people
around me listened to good music. During
that period I heard many bands and artists for the first time like Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Pantera.
Rich:Sabbath,
Soundgarden, Kyuss and the Melvins were my
earliest inspirations to play guitar and write music. Out of the current active
bands, we’re of course inspired by the bands we get to share the stage with,
recently we’ve really enjoyed Svalbard and Conjurer, always tight and giving 100% each time. I’m also
really loving SubRosa
and JK Flesh
at the moment.
SL: Whilst we’re
on the subject of inspiration or heroes for example, do you have 5 records that stand out as favourites, what influence did
they have upon you and what is it about those records that particular resonates
amongst others?
Rich: Here’s a few favourites and one new discovery. The list is always expanding.
Mamiffer: “Mare Decendri”
I had the
good fortune to catch Mamiffer
along with JK Flesh
and Sumac in
London recently and they really stole the show for me. This album is a masterpiece: beautiful
arrangements, a deep and rich sound and a haunting atmosphere.
Beach
Boys:
“Pet Sounds”
The
density of the arrangements and how experimental the song structures are still
amazes me and continues to be an influence on how I craft songs. It’s an
eye-opening album for me, in the sense that music can be so inventive, dynamic
and compositionally experimental and still pack a huge emotional punch.
The
Cure:
“Pornography”
An
incredible album. Darkness permeates through every song, it could have only
contained “One Hundred Years” and it would still be one of my all-time
favourite records. Robert Smith is one of the most under-rated guitar players
of all time for me.
Botch: “We are the
Romans”
A classic.
“C Thomas Howell as the Soul Man” is one of the best hardcore songs
ever. Hydrahead Records
in particular has been, and continues to be, a big inspiration for me.
Fall
of Efrafa:
“Owsla”
A genius
first chapter in a conceptual discography. This record opened up a whole world
of underground crust and post-metal for me, along with the DIY subculture it
was birthed out of.
Piotr: It’s hard to choose only five, so I’ll only name rock albums.
Metallica -
“...and Justice For All“,
A big
inspiration on song structure
Pink
Floyd
- “Dark side of the moon“
Without a
doubt, amazing melodies.
Tool - “Lateralus“
Just
genius, isn’i it?!
Deftones - “White pony“
Atmospheric,
great drum beats, it is what I would call romantic metal, if that makes sense.
Micheal
Jackson
- “Bad“
Because it
needs to be mentioned as one of my first musical influences.
Ted: There are too many albums that I could list in my top 5. These are just
a few that spring to my mind immediately.
Pentagram- “First Daze
Here”
Led
Zeppelin-
“IV”
Black
Sabbath-
“Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”
Fleetwood
Mac-
“Rumours”
Converge- “Jane Doe”
SL: Can remember your first
electric guitar, bass?
Piotr: Yes, and it’s still on my bedroom wall, an Epiphone Les Paul.
Ted: Yes, It was an old Encore
Strat copy that my Dad bought for me I think. Pretty standard but it
did the job for a few years.
Rich: Yes. It was
a Stagg, in that old ZZ Top shape. Truly a
terrible guitar, The neck broke within a couple of months!
SL: What guitar(s) bass (s) are
you using today and how did you gravitate towards the guitar you currently use?
Rich
& Piotr: We both use Ltd Ec1000’s. We both really love Les Pauls and humbuckers, and the
Ltd’s are great, hold low tunings really well and are fairly light for Les Paul style guitars.
You can also pick them up at a reasonable price second-hand which is a massive
plus. In all honestly we are both continually expanding our sound, and for sure
there will come a time for different guitars and pickups
Ted: In Telepathy I use an Epiphone Explorer bass.
SL: What do you like about the
guitars you currently use and has there been any specific modifications to
it?
Rich
& Piotr: No modifications currently other than a basic
set-up to allow us keep our low tuned strings stable. We’re both toying with
idea of adding a single coil pickup though at the moment.
Ted: I love it because I’ve never seen anyone else use one and it’s just a
massive, gnarly lump of wood that looks rad when slung nice and low. I’m going
to have to change the pickups in it at some point because it runs so hot that
you get a lot of feedback if you play too close to your rig, so playing on a
small stage can be problematic.
SL: What amps and pedals do you
currently use? Do you use a combination of
amps, or a full half stack? Talk us through your set up both in the studio and
in the live environment?
These are all in a constant state of flux, but here
are our current set-ups..
Rich:
Guitar > Tuner - Vox Delaylab - Maxon od808 - Empress Heavy – Little Big Muff - Boss RV-5 > Orange Rockerverb 100
and Orange PPC412
cabinet
Piotr:
Guitar > Tuner – Digitech Whammy – Empress Heavy – EHX Micro Synth – EHX B9 Organ Machine – MXR Analog Delay – TC Electronic Flashback Delay
(mini) – EHX
Super Ego > Fender
MH Head and Cab.
In the studio, we’ve been tracking with Jaime Gomez
at Orgone Studios
who has a wealth of vintage gear. We’ve tracking with an 80’s Marshall JCM800 and Peavey 5150 blended for
heavy guitars and a silver
face Fender Twin Reverb for cleans. We’ve used our own boards and
guitars, except for some clean passages on which we’ve used a hybrid super
strat Gomez has knocking about. We’ve also used an old EPIPHONE acoustic Ted
has which sounds amazing. For bass we used a vintage Ampeg SVT and Fender P Bass.
SL: What one pedal could not live
without and why?
Ted: My Boss TU-2
Chromatic Tuner. Can’t go wrong with it.
Rich: Aside from a tuner, my Empress Heavy. It has two great, responsive gain channels
and has added in a lot of the low end that my Rockerverb was missing on its gain channel,
via its brilliant weight control. It’s also been great to EQ to different rooms
with.
Piotr: Tough one... I guess it must be
my Mxr Analog Delay
– it’s just too good!
SL: What are your amp/ pedal settings?
Rich:Orange
clean channel, bass about 2 o’clock, mids and treble around 12 (dependent on
what room we’re playing). Very loud. I use the Heavy Empress for both a crunch channel and
distorted channel
Piotr:As of this moment I’m using
my Fender MH
amp, my settings are around 12 o’clock for clean gain, with a lot of bass,
little treble and about half on the mid channel. When it comes to pedals, it is
the Heavy Empress
that adds all the heaviness, with similar settings to the amps just with less
bass and more gain.
SL: What tunings do you use and
why, and as a result is there a specific brand / gauge of string you prefer ?
We tune to BEDGBE for guitars. Ted tunes toBEAD, it’s like standard 5 string tuning but without
the high G. He prefers that tuning because it allows him the freedom to move
through the scales without having to worry about any dropped strings. We all use
Ernie Ball strings generally.
Piotr:Ernie Ball
Heavy top Slinky Bottom
Rich: I use Power
Slinky’s but exchange the two lowest strings with a .42 and .54
Ted: I recently switched to Ernie Ball Power Slinky, they’re 110’s and I was using
130’s before. They’re just a lot better to play than the heavier ones SL: Do you have any
advice for up and coming guitars players, bands?
Practice, do whatever the hell you want musically
and most importantly play from the heart.
SL: Do feel
there are deeply held misconceptions about being in a band?
I’m sure there are many, most of which are based on
70’s excess and the boom years of the industry.
SL: Moving on a little then, what
can you tell us about any of your current projects, tours, cds, etc and anything
else band related we should know about?
We can tell you our next record is nearing
completion. We have been recording periodically throughout the year with Jaime
Gomez Arellano (Cathedral,
Paradise Lost,
With the Dead,
Sunn O)))
& Ulver,
etc)
We’re about to hit the road in Europe and have some
great off-shows coming up around the UK, including Noizfest in Manchester in October.
SL: What springs to mind when you think about the completion of your upcoming
record and how is the mood in the camp at present?
Well, currently we’re
demo-ing overdubs and textures to add when we return to the studio on 23rd
August. We’re all incredibly proud of this new work, and the mood in camp has
never been better, especially after the addition of Ted on bass. We’re
currently buzzing to get back on the road in Europe for some headline shows and
a performance at Incubate
2016 in Tilburg.
SL: Who are some your favourite bands you have toured with and what have been
your proudest moments and/or performance of your playing career?
It’s tough to name just a few moments or shows, but
playing Desertfest
this year was pretty insane, there was a queue out to the street to catch our
set at the Black Heart
which was pretty crazy.
Incubate in 2014 was a similar situation, we ended up headlining our stage due to
a cancellation, and playing to packed room in Tilburg at such a prestigious
festival was an honour.
More recently, it’s been rad playing shows with Rosetta, Svalbard, Conjurer, Grand Collapse (two
words: water) and Latitudes.
However,
the thing we take most pride in is that everything we’ve achieved up until this
point has been 100% our own work, and we have never compromised our vision in
any way.
SL: What can
fans look forward to from you over the
next 12 months? How is your schedule
shaping up?
The release of a new record and A LOT of live shows.
Watch this space.
SL:Finally, do you have any final comments/word of wisdom you’d like to bestow upon
us?
A big thanks to The Sludgelord for the continued support!
