TOP 16 ALBUMS: The Sour 16 for February 2017

Let it be known fellow Sludgelordians, “The Sour 16” returns.  The Sludgelord presents the very best riff based music to pour scorn on this desolate day and strike upon us the might of the riff, to inject our veins with sin and guide us on journey of subservice to doom, an act that goes against the very laws and teachings of populist culture, and for those that wish to come with us on our quest, kneel with me as we embrace the thunderous din that is, “The Sour 16”.

You know the drill by now, each month, you the reader are unwittingly compiling a list of the top 16 records of the month, covering all genres of metal.  Is it not a chart, in which reviewers or contributors extol their opinion about their favourite music.  To put it simply, “The Sour 16” are the records that have been trending the most at Sludgelord Headquarters.

The results are compiled based on page views alone and calibrated into the list below.  All reviews can be viewed by clicking the artwork and we have included album streams wherever possible. (Total views since their publication are highlighted in red)

16). Morta Skuld - "Wounds Deeper Than Time" (579)

15). Crystal Fairy - "Crystal Fairy" (629)

14). Woe - “Hope Attrition” (660)

13). Weltesser - "Crestfallen" (711)

12). Grey Widow - "II" (720)

11). Dread Sovereign - "For Doom The Bell Tolls" (739)

10). Brutus - "Burst" (820)

9). Wiegedood - “De Doden Hebben Het Goed II” (924)

8). Psychedelic Witchcraft – “Magick Rites and Spells" (979)

  

7). Darkest Hour - “Godless Prophets & the Migrant Flora” (1011)

6). Death Alley - "Live At Roadburn" (1023)

5). Cult of Occult / Grim Van Doom - "Split" (1096)

4). Sleep - "The Clarity" (EP) (1437)

3). DOOL - "Here Now, There Then" (1439)

2). Unearthly Trance - "Stalking the Ghost" (1526)

1). Widows - "Oh Deer God" (1705)

A big thank you as always to our amazing writers, your dedication knows no boundaries and for that I am truly grateful. February’s  “Sour 16” features reviews by:  Victor Van Ommen, Ben Fitts, Theron Moore, Brandon Green, Charlie Butler, Chris Bull, Jake Wallace, Conor O’Dea & Grim Trashcan

ALBUM REVIEW: Wiegedood - “De Doden Hebben Het Goed II”

By: Conor O’Dea

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 10/02/2017

Label: Consouling Sounds

I cannot find any fault with this album. It is a rending and harrowing masterpiece, and I recommend it without reservation. At first, I found myself missing the longer songs of the debut, but the stripped out agony that this tighter piece represents is just brilliant...and gutting. Get it

“De Doden Hebben Het Goed II” CD//DD//LP track listing:

1. Ontzielling (07:32)
2. Cataract (11:11)
3. De Doden Hebben Het Goed II (08:29)
4. Smeekbede (06:13)

The Review:

There is something sublimely overwhelming about Wiegedood's approach to black metal; listening to “De Doden Hebben Het Goed” for me felt like slowly being battered to death by waves while simultaneously being dragged down by undertow. The sublimity here, however, comes from the sense of willingly letting go and being carried down into death by those black oceans. And why not? "The dead are faring well," as Wiegedood tell us.

“De Doden Hebben Het Goed II” refines and enhances this sense of black metal rip tides and heavy, perilous gravity. More sparse than the debut album, but retaining the same pummelling undercurrents layered sinister melodic whorls and eddies, this album feels like a titration and distillation of the bleak poetics of Wiegedood's earlier work. This album is short; 33:25 in total length. But it has a definitive narrative arc that is compelling and elegantly structured. Opener “Ontzielling” rushes out at the listener, tsunami-like and unrelenting. This is the first immersion into violent, dark and frigid waters. “Cataract” conjures both the sense of the rushing flow of these waters and the deepening of that darkness through encroaching blindness. This track crescendos, then crashes and ebbs into the resignation and resolution of “De Doden Hebben Het Goed II.” Deep solemnity pervades the title track on the album, itself in: let yourself go, do not fight this drowning, the dead are doing well, join them. In the end, we return to deep grief and tragedy: supplication, pleading, begging – “Smeekbede”. This final song feels like the mourning and keening of those left behind by this death; a final howl, an agonising cry.

I cannot find any fault with this album. It is a rending and harrowing masterpiece, and I recommend it without reservation. At first, I found myself missing the longer songs of the debut, but the stripped out agony that this tighter piece represents is just brilliant...and gutting. Get it.

“De Doden Hebben Het Goed II” is available to buy/preorder here

Band info: facebook || bandcamp

Wiegedood - ‘De Doden Hebben Het Goed’ (Album Review)

Album Type: Full-length

Date Released: 7/5/2015

Label: Consouling Sounds

‘‘De Doden Hebben Het Goed’ CD//LP//DD track listing:

1. Svanesang

2. Kwaad Bloed

3. De Doden Hebben Het Goed

4. Onder Gaan

Wiegedood is:

Gilles Demolder | Guitar

Wim | Drums

Levy Seynaeve | Guitar, Vocals

Review:

Music writers can be an impossible lot to sort out when it comes to our eccentricities and the occasional leaps in our logic. Particularly when rationalizing why we hate this album but love that album. You’ll read a review decrying black metal as being stagnant and boring from someone who loves another album because it sounds like it could have been a part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. I myself have complained about the recent glut of GodCity Studio soundalike bands, while gleefully telling everyone to run out and buy Thulcandra because it sounds just like Dissection circa 1995. I’ve marked albums down for using blast beats where the kick and snare are struck at the same time—something that matters to maybe 50 people on the entire planet—and then talk up the latest Internal Bleeding album because the rest of the album is good enough to make up for the use of the blasting technique.

My point is, we’re all capable of failure in consistency. And in that spirit, I think I’ve reached a headspace where I care less about what “moves a genre forward” or “makes a statement” or whatever else music writers are supposed to care about than I ever have. There’s one primary question and then a follow up and that’s all that I’m really concerned with right now: is it any good? If so: how good? If not: why not? Beyond that, not much else is terribly important. It’s absolutely necessary to have a justification for why you do or don’t like an album, but when it comes to an album needing to meet some arbitrary requirement for being inventive or original; those standards are applied so unevenly and loosely by myself and plenty of others that I’ve decided it’s just a cop out when we really just want to say some variation of “this just doesn’t work for me”.

Now, having written over three-hundred words without even having mentioned the goddamned album yet; the reason I bothered to bring all of that up here is this: Wiegedood’s ‘De Doden Hebben Het Goed’ is really fucking good even though it does nothing to move the black metal genre forward, nor does it bring something new to the table. The guitar style makes use of techniques we’ve all heard before in a black metal context, same with the drums and vocals. It’s all there, like you’ve heard it done before, and yet it’s excellent. Smartly-crafted melodic black metal, largely carried out in a style that should feel familiar to anyone who’s heard ‘Wodensthrone’, only without the occasional keyboard bed underneath.

Tying back in with my opening rant, what makes this album so good comes from the two pieces of the puzzle that actually amount to something for me right now: songwriting and performance. ‘De Doden Hebben Het Goed’ is much more impressive in the former category, but strong in the latter. The compositions don’t demand much from a technical performance standpoint, but it’s pretty rare to find something outside of speed and endurance that would be demanding in a black metal album. Often it’s songwriting that plays the most important role in black metal, and that’s where Wiegedood’s current formula excels. There are moments throughout the album that hit you right in the gut and there are moments where you want to headbang until your neck falls off. It’s hard to ask for much more from a black metal album, and it puts it all together with familiar pieces.

Words by: Daniel Jackson

You can pick up a digital copy here, a CD copy here and LP copy here.

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