Thursday 4 September 2014

Tides Of Sulfur - Ypres EP (Review)


Album Type: EP
Date Released: October 2014
Label: Self Released

Ypres - track listing:

1. Ypres
2. 16 With A Bullet
3. Trench Foot

Bio

Messers O'Shea, Bull and Burston put their collective heads together and played some death tinged sludge..or sludge tinged death depending on who you ask. The result was the ETERNAL BLEEDING demo EP available at the bandcamp page. The band's debut was supporting the mighty Thorun, Hogslayer and Raptordactyls in December 2012. The following year saw them sharing the stage with the likes of Pohl and Widows, as well as local heavyweights Cryptophile, Howl, HOMOH, Gorgantuan, Bloodlung, Fell On Black Days, Culver, and Ironbird as well as more shows with the aforementioned Hogslayer and Thorun and reaching the Semi-Finals of the Cardiff leg of the Metal 2 the Masses competition.

Members

Anthony 'Snake' O'Shea-Shredding/Apparitions
Chris Bull-Throat/Low-End Assault/Noise
Tom Lee-Battery

Review:

The sound of sadness. A slow torture. War, mustard gas and bodies caked with mud. A thousand trenches cut in to a landscape pockmarked by shell craters, rows of twisted razor wire stretching off into the distance . This is what I see in my minds eye when listening to Ypres. A mixture of Doom, Sludge and blackened Death Metal brought to you by Welsh trio....Tides Of Sulfur.

War is not a new musical theme, it's part of our history...it's happening right now. Many bands have written songs, even whole albums, based on our inclination to destroy each other. Heavy music seems to get the point across. The turmoil, the pointlessness, the sadness that follows every bullet. Tides Of Sulfur have put together something that represents all of these things. Slow suffocation, dark and claustrophobic.


Title track 'Ypres' begins with a short spoken word sample, the music begins, slow and bludgeoning. A layer of sound sits in the background, gun fire and whirring bullets. The bass guitar sits alone in the grim emptiness. Growling vocals punch through, giving us snippets of information about the grizzly scene. The music marches on relentlessly, one fuzz drenched note after another. You can almost feel the state manufactured hatred that was burned in to each fallen man.

'16 With A Bullet' is faster in pace. Short and to the point; Death Metal in its make up. Screaming at us about the young dead. The determination to survive in an impossible environment. The drums thunder and stampede, the fog of war. It ends as quickly as it begins..just like human life.

Another lonely bass guitar riff is the intro to 'Trench Foot', with the slow rhythm following shortly after. The guitar joins in to complete the lazy march. Then it's all change, the doom ends and the aggression begins, the track moves in another direction. More talk of bullets and the brothers they have stolen away. We open out in to an instrumental section that sets the scene for the words that follow.....“Only the dead see the end of the world”. Then stop.

Ypres does what the band wanted it to do. It gives a glimpse in to the dark heart of the human condition. I was impressed and saddened. Maybe this is more relevant to right now than we care to admit.

Ypres will be released on October 18th 2014 on Vinyl style CD, limited edition green or grey cassette and digital download.

Check the Band from Links Below


Written by Keeran Williams